She moaned and moved as best she could inside her bonds. It was almost enough.
Vicky awoke confused, staring in disorientation at the bedside clock. She guessed it was still an hour before dawn. She had not slept for long. But she wanted to stretch, and so she did so. Her body felt alive. More, it felt . . . she searched for an apt word . . . hopeful.
Then she turned her head and recoiled back against the pillow. Bobby Cowell stood at the foot of her bed. His left hand swung back and forth slowly. Something metallic glittered. A pass-key. Vicky tried to speak.
He had been watching her sleep.
He had watched her dream.
“There’s just something about you,” he said softly. He smiled in the dim light, teeth showing white.
There was no conscious planning. She swung her legs off the bed, hearing the briefcase slide to the carpet, then sat up and took a deep breath or two to counter the sudden vertigo. After a few seconds, she got up and hesitated.
She could lunge for the phone. Or the door. She saw no weapon in evidence other than the key.
“I know who you are,” said Bobby. “I know everything you want.” He stepped back away from the door. She could flee.
“What do you want?” Vicky said.
“To take you for a ride. It’s still a beautiful night. We’ll go up into the mountains.”
It was so much like a dream. She didn’t remember to bring a coat, but the late, late night didn’t seem to be all that cold, so it didn’t matter.
At the bottom of the fire-stairwell, she waited for him. “I figured you’d come,” he said softly, taking her arm.
“I will,” said Vicky. Was she still sleeping? All in motion only slightly slower than reality.
They exited the stairwell. “I have my car out in the lot,” said Bobby.
Vicky nodded and put her free hand over his fingers on her arm. “I figured that,” she said. His fingers were warm. The excitement inside her was cold. She looked up and saw the distant, sinking moon.
They passed the mezzanine and turned toward the steps leading down to the parking lot. Vicky, hesitated a split second, stared back over Bobby’s shoulder, hesitated a little longer.
At the other end of the platform, Carol Anne stood, leaned away from the city, staring back at them. Her expression altered mercurially. Vicky didn’t think Bobby had seen Carol Anne watching them. Maybe she’d see Carol Anne in the morning. Maybe not.
“Come on,” said Vicky, turning back to the steps. And at the beginning of the final descent to the outside world, she thought about the last enigmatic expression on Carol Anne’s face. Wistful?
She hoped – wished desperately – it was only that.
NICHOLAS ROYLE
Flying into Naples
IT’S BEEN ANOTHER successful year for Nicholas Royle: along with appearances in all three ‘Year’s Best’ horror volumes, his stories have been published in such anthologies as The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, Dark Voices 5 and 6, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural, Little Deaths and Shadows Over Innsmouth, amongst others. His anthologies Darklands and Darklands 2 have been reprinted in the UK by New English Library, and he has sold his first two novels, Counterparts and Saxophone Dreams to Penguin Books. He also won British Fantasy Awards in 1993 for Darklands 2 and his story “Night Shift Sister” (which we published in Best New Horror 4).
About the following story, the author explains: “I was considering making the trip to Naples by car, in which case it might have been ‘Driving into Naples’, which would have been a completely different story and, to judge from the standard of driving in the city, I wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale.
“The young woman who formed part of the inspiration for the character of Flavia said she hoped I would write more stories based on her. I told her that would require additional research . . .”
FLYING INTO NAPLES the 737 hits some turbulence and gets thrown about a bit. It’s dark outside but I can’t even see any lights on the ground. I’m a nervous flyer anyway and this doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s taking off and landing that bother me.
But when we’re down and I’m crossing the tarmac to the airport buildings there’s a warm humid stillness in the air that makes me wonder about the turbulence. I wander through passport control and customs like someone in a dream. The officials seem covered in a fine layer of dust as if they’ve been standing there for years just waiting.
No one speaks to me and I get on the bus marked “Centro Napoli.” I’m on holiday. All I’ve got in Naples is a name, a photograph and a wrong number. The name is a woman’s – Flavia – and the photograph is of the view from her apartment. The phone number I tried last week to say I was coming turned out to belong to someone else entirely.
I’ve worked out from the photograph and my map that the apartment is on a hill on the west side of the city. There’s not much more to go on. It’s too late to go and look for it tonight. Flavia won’t be expecting me – beyond occasional vague invitations nothing has been arranged – and she could take a long time to locate.
I knew her years ago when she visited London and stayed in the hotel where I was working the bar. We knew each other briefly – a holiday romance, if you like – but something ensured I would not forget her. Whether it was the sunrise we saw together or the shock of her body in the quiet shadow of my room over the kitchens, or a combination of these and other factors – her smile, my particular vulnerability, her tumbling curls – I don’t know, but something fixed her in my mind. So when I found myself with a week’s holiday at the end of three difficult months in a new, stressful job. I dug out her letters – two or three only over eight years, including this recent photograph of the view from her apartment – and booked a last-minute flight to Naples.
I’d never been there though I’d heard so much about it – how violent and dangerous it could be for foreigners, yet how beautiful – and I would enjoy the effort required to get along in Italian.
I’m alone on the bus apart from one other man – a local who spends the 20-minute ride talking on a cellphone to his mistress in Rome – and the taciturn driver. I’ve come before the start of the season, but it’s already warm enough not to need my linen jacket.
I’m divorced. I don’t know about Flavia. She never mentioned anybody, just as she never revealed her address when she wrote to me. I’ve been divorced two years and a period of contented bachelorhood has only recently come to a natural end, and with the arrival of spring in London I have found myself watching women once again: following a hemline through the human traffic of Kensington, turning to see the face of a woman in Green Park whose hair looked so striking from behind. It may be spring in Berkeley Square but it feels like midsummer in Naples. The air is still and hot and humid when I leave the bus at the main railway station and begin walking into the centre of the city in search of a cheap hotel. I imagine I’m probably quite conspicuous in what must be one of the most dangerous areas but the hotels in the immediate vicinity – the pavement outside the Europa is clogged with upturned rubbish bins; the tall, dark, narrow Esedra looks as if it’s about to topple sideways – look unwelcoming so I press on. It’s late, after 10.30pm, and even the bars and restaurants are closed. Youths buzz past on Vespas and Piaggios unhelmeted despite the apparent dedication of the motorists here to the legend “live fast, die young.” I hold my bag close and try to look confident but after 15 minutes or so the hotels have disappeared. I reach a large empty square and head deeper into the city. I ask a gun-holstered security guard if there is a pension in the neighbourhood but he shrugs and walks away. I climb a street that has lights burning but they turn out to be a latenight bar and a fruit stand. Two boys call to me from a doorway and as I don’t understand I just carry on, but at the top is a barrier and beyond that a private apartment complex, so I have to turn back and the two boys are laughing as I walk past them.
I try in another direction but there are only banks and food stor
es, all locked up. Soon I realize I’m going to have to go back down to the area round the railway station. I cross the road to avoid the prostitutes on the corner of Via Seggio del Popolo, not because of any spurious moral judgment but just because it seems I should go out of my way to avoid trouble, so easy is it innocently to court disaster in a foreign country. But in crossing the road I walk into a problem. There’s a young woman standing in a doorway whom in the darkness I had failed to see. She moves swiftly out of the doorway into my path and I gasp in surprise. The streetlamp throws the dark bruises around her eyes into even deeper perspective. Her eyes are sunken, almost lost in her skull, and under her chin are the dark tough bristles of a juvenile beard. She speaks quickly, demanding something and before I’ve collected my wits she’s produced a glittering blade from her jacket pocket which she thrusts towards me like a torch at an animal. I react too slowly and feel a sudden hot scratch on my bare arm.
My jacket’s over my other arm so I’m lucky that I don’t drop it and give the woman the chance to strike again. She lunges but I’m away down the street running for my life. When it’s clear she’s not chasing me I stop for breath. One or two passers-by look at me with mild curiosity. I head back in the direction of the railway station. Down a side street on my right I recognize one of the hotels I saw earlier – the Esedra. Then I hadn’t liked the look of it, but now it’s my haven from the streets. I approach the glass doors and hesitate when I realize there are several men in the lobby. But the thought of the drugged-up woman makes me go on. So I push open the door and the men look up from their card game. I’m about to ask for a room when one of the men, who’s had a good long look at me, says something to the man behind the little counter and this man reaches for a key from room 17’s pigeon hole. I realize what’s happening – they’ve mistaken me for someone who’s already a guest – and there was a time when I would have been tempted to accept the key in the desire to save money, but these days I’m not short of cash. So, I hesitate only for a moment before saying that I’m looking for a room. The man is momentarily confused but gets me another key – room 19 – from a hook and quotes a price. It’s cheap; the hotel is probably a haunt of prostitutes but right now I don’t care. I just need a bed for the night.
“It’s on the third floor,” the man says. I pay him and walk up. There are lightbulbs but they’re so heavily shaded the stairs are darker than the street outside. On each landing there are four doors: three bedrooms and one toilet cum shower. I unlock the door to room 19 and close it behind me.
I have a routine with hotel rooms: I lock myself in and switch on all the lights and open all the cupboards and drawers until I feel I know the room as well as I can. And I always check the window.
There are two single beds, some sticks of furniture, a bidet and a washbasin – I open the cold tap and clean up the scratch on my arm. The window is shuttered. I pull on the cord to raise the shutter. I’m overlooking the Corso Uberto I which runs up to the railway station. I step on to the tiny balcony and my hands get covered in dust from the wrought-iron railing. The cars in the street below are filmed with dust also. The winds blow sand here from the deserts of North Africa and it falls with the rain. I pull a chair on to the balcony and sit for a while thinking about Flavia. Somewhere in this city she’s sitting watching television or eating in a restaurant and she doesn’t know I’m here. Tomorrow I will try to find her.
I watch the road and I’m glad I’m no longer out there looking for shelter. Small knots of young men unravel on street corners and cross streets that don’t need crossing. After a while I start to feel an uncomfortable solidity creeping into my limbs, so I take the chair back inside and drop the shutter. I’d prefer to leave it open but the open window might look like an invitation.
I’m lying in bed hoping that sleep will come but there’s a scuttling rustling noise keeping me awake. It’s coming from the far side of the room near the washbasin and the framed print of the ancient city of Pompeii. It sounds like an insect, probably a cockroach. I’m not alarmed. I’ve shared hotel rooms with pests before, but I want to go to sleep. There’s no use left in this day and I’m eager for the next one to begin.
Something else is bothering me: I want to go and try the door to room 17 and see why the proprietor was about to give me that key. The scratching noise is getting louder and although I can’t fall asleep I’m getting more and more tired so that I start to imagine the insect. It’s behind the picture where it’s scratched out its own little hole and it’s lying in wait for me to go and lift the picture aside and it will come at me slow and deadly, like a Lancaster bomber. The noise works deeper into my head. The thing must have huge wings and antennae. Scratch . . . scratch . . . scratch. I can’t stand it any more. I get up, pull on my trousers and leave the room.
The stairs are completely dark. I feel my way to the next landing and switch on the light in the WC to allow me to see the numbers on the doors. I push open the door to room 17, feeling a layer of dust beneath my fingertips, and it swings open. The chinks in the shutter admit enough light to paint a faint picture of a man lying on the bed who looks not unlike me. I step into the room and feel grit on the floor under my feet. As I step closer the man on the bed turns to look at me. His lips move slowly.
“I came straight here,” he says, “instead of walking into the city to find something better.”
I don’t know what to say. Pulling up a chair I sit next to him.
“I found her,” he continues. “She lives above the city on the west side. You can see Vesuvius from her window.”
I grip his cold hand and try to read the expression on his face. But it’s blank. The words rustle in his mouth like dry leaves caught between stones.
“She’s not interested. Watch out for Vesuvius.” he whispers, then falls silent. I sit there for a while watching his grey face for any sign of life but there’s nothing. Feeling an unbearable sadness for which I can’t reasonably account I return to my room and lie flat on my back on the little bed.
The unknown insect is still busy scratching behind the ruins of Pompeii.
I wake up to heavy traffic under my window, my head still thick with dreams. On my way downstairs I pause on the landing opposite room 17 and feel a tug. But I know the easiest thing is not to think too much about it and just carry on downstairs, hand in the key and leave the hotel for good. Even if I don’t manage to locate Flavia I won’t come back here. I’ll find something better.
I walk across the city, stopping at a little bar for a cappuccino and a croissant. The air smells of coffee, cigarettes and laundry. Strings of clothes are hung out in the narrow passages like bunting. Moped riders duck their heads to avoid vests and socks as they bounce over the cobbles. Cars negotiate alleys barely wide enough to walk down, drivers jabbing at the horn to clear the way. Pedestrians step aside unhurriedly and there are no arguments or remonstrations.
The sun is beating down but there’s a haze like sheer nylon stretched above the rooftops – dust in the air. I’m just heading west and climbing through distinct areas. The class differences show up clearly in the homes – the bassi, tiny rooms that open directly on to the street, and higher up the huge apartment blocks with their own gate and security – and in the shops and the goods sold in them. Only the dust is spread evenly.
As soon as I’m high enough to see Vesuvius behind me I take out the photograph and use it to direct my search, heading always west.
It takes a couple of hours to cross the city and locate the right street. I make sure it’s the right view before starting to read the names on the bell-pushes. The building has to be on the left-hand side of the road because those on the right aren’t high enough to have a view over those on the left. I still don’t know if I’m going to find the name or not. Through the gaps between the buildings I can see Vesuvius on the other side of the bay. By looking ahead I’m even able to estimate the exact building, and it turns out I’m right. There’s the name – F. Sannia – among a dozen others. I pres
s the bell without thinking about it.
When Flavia comes to open the door I’m surprised. Perhaps it’s more her place to be surprised than mine but she stands there with a vacant expression on her face. What a face, though, what extraordinary beauty. She was good looking when we first met, of course, but in the intervening years she has grown into a stunning woman. I fear to lean forward and kiss her cheeks lest she crumbles beneath my touch. But the look is blank. I don’t know if she recognizes me. I say her name then my own and I must assume her acquiescence – as she turns back into the hall and hesitates momentarily – to be an invitation. So I follow her. She walks slowly but with the same lightness of step that I remember from before.
As I follow her into the apartment I’m drawn immediately to the far side of the main room where there’s a balcony with a spectacular view over the Bay of Naples and, right in the centre at the back, Mount Vesuvius. Unaware of where Flavia has disappeared to, I stand there watching the view for some minutes. Naples is built on hills and one of them rises from the sea to dominate the left middle ground, stepped with huge crumbling apartment buildings and sliced up by tapering streets and alleys that dig deeper the narrower they become. The whole city hums like a hive and cars and scooters buzz about like drones. But the main attraction is Vesuvius. What a place to build a city: in the shadow of a volcano.
It’s a while before I realize Flavia has returned and is standing behind me as I admire the view.
“What do you want to do while you are in Naples?” she asks with a level voice. “You’ll stay here, of course.”
“You’re very kind. I meant to give you some notice but I don’t think I had the right phone number.” I show her the number in my book.
“I changed it,” she says as she sits in one of the wicker chairs and indicates for me to do the same. “I’ve been widowed six times,” she says and then falls silent. “It’s easier.”
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