The Future of Horror

by Jonathan Oliver

  “I can’t leave the house,” she said. There was a tremor of something under her words. Was it fear? “I’d have to take everything with me. I’d have to start again.” She got to her feet. “I can’t leave the house,” she repeated softly, before turning and walking with her precisely even steps back out towards the kitchen. Jack watched her go. What a strange response. He barely saw her for the rest of the day, and when she brought his dinner to the table, she wouldn’t meet his eye. He offered his apology for perhaps being too personal, and she’d accepted it with a slight nod, but no further conversation.

  It was, however, he concluded when he had bathed and settled into his room for the night, perhaps the closest he’d seen her to having an emotional response to anything, other than the slight twitch of her mouth when she’d first mentioned her husband. He thought again about the feel of her underwear, soft in his fingers. Would her skin feel like that, he wondered, so different to the rough women he’d become used to over the years? It was a different, restless sleep he fell into, plagued with different, hotter dreams, but he woke with a start, just as he had all the other nights. He found it was no longer unexpected.

  He didn’t allow time for fear to grip him, or for the unnatural sounds (because even he could no longer deny that there was something very wrong about them) to play out their angry repertoire, but instead pushed back the covers and stormed out into the corridor and up to the top of the house. He banged on the door, no gentle knocking this time.

  “Mrs Argyle? Mrs Argyle? Whatever it is you’re doing in there, can you bloody well stop it!” His voice was loud, and it felt good to be combating the noise from within with some of his own. “Stop your bloody crying or come out and talk to me!” Inside, something smashed against a wall and the door shook violently. Jack jumped backwards. “Jesus Christ! Jesus bloody Christ!”

  “Mr Hasting?” the soft voice called up the stairs. “Are you all right?”

  He spun around as the light on the first floor came on, stretching up towards him. His heart thumped.

  “What are you shouting for? Is it a bad dream?”

  Jack crept down the stairs and found her standing outside his room in her dressing gown, the cord tied tight around her slim middle. She didn’t eat enough, he decided, and with her hair down around her shoulders he could see that she really was a beauty. A rare, hidden beauty. He decided all this in an unconscious instant, storming towards her.

  Her eyes widened. “What were you doing up there?”

  “Trying to get whoever is in there to shut up!”

  She flinched slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking –”

  “– whoever you’ve rented that room to is making an infernal racket. Every night. Footsteps. Crying. Breaking things. And that bloody music box going round and round…”

  “Stop it,” she said suddenly. “Stop it. That room is empty. There’s no one up there.” She spat the words out at him. “Don’t go up there again, or I will ask you to leave.”

  The sudden fire in her startled him. “I don’t care who you’ve got up there. I would simply like to have a decent night’s sleep without being woken at quarter to three every night. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  “There’s no one up there,” she repeated, before turning her stiff back on him and returning downstairs. When she reached the bottom she turned the lights off and left him in the gloom of the corridor.

  No one up there? He looked back at the stairs. Something was up there, of that he was not mistaken. Could an animal have got in through the roof somehow and got stuck? No, he decided, as he crawled back under the covers. That wouldn’t make sense. They were human footsteps he was hearing, heavy but human. As was the whispering and the sobbing.

  He didn’t like to think about the whisper that had damply teased his ear under the covers the previous night. Thinking about that would lead to thoughts he didn’t wish to have. Ghosts. Spirits. Something other. He hadn’t believed in those when he’d been a child, and he wasn’t going to start now. But still, he shivered slightly and hesitated before turning out his light, the chill this time in his bones and soul rather than the air around him. He was going to have to get to the bottom of this. For the sake of his own sanity if nothing else. The night crept round to dawn. He drifted into a half-sleep and dreamed of someone whispering “help me,” damp and wet, into his ear.

  JACK SLEPT THROUGH breakfast, but found a note in the hallway telling him to help himself to tea and toast from the kitchen if she was still out when he got up. He made tea, but didn’t bother with food. All the nocturnal activity had killed his appetite and he had to admit he’d been slightly nervous at the prospect of facing Mrs Argyle after their meeting outside his room. Would she have just acted as if the whole thing hadn’t happened?

  She was still out when he finally left to walk down to The Red Lion. The heavy rain of the previous day had faded to a fine mist and the temperature had risen slightly, creating a grey fog from which people emerged liked shades and were past each other before eyes could meet. The town was quieter too, and when the church bells sounded out the end of the morning service, Jack shivered at their eerie tones.

  The door had only just been unlocked when he arrived at the pub, but he wasn’t the first inside, and that cheered his mood. The lights were bright and the landlord grinned from behind the cigarette clamped between his teeth as he poured him out a pint. Jack took it to a table with the paper and sat and watched as the bar slowly filled with men, a couple with women on their arms, dressed in their Sunday best. The women’s laughter carried over the men’s and as he watched their red lips and tilted necks, he remembered all the women in all the towns from all the jobs. Mrs Argyle was a world apart from them. Once again, the soft feel of her underwear returned to his mind. Mrs Argyle and the room upstairs. They seemed to fill his thoughts. He wondered if perhaps he was going slightly mad. He ordered another pint. It was Sunday, after all.

  “I TOLD YOU not to come here,” Jack said when he returned to his table to find Scrubbers standing beside it. “Is your memory that short?”

  “I’ve got a message, that’s all,” Scrubbers said. There was no aggression in his voice, just an edge of disgruntlement. He was a dog who was used to being whipped. He put his umbrella against the wall. “It’s Arthur. He’s called. He’ll be back tonight. He’ll meet you here tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Jack said, although he was surprised to find he didn’t care much either way. “This isn’t really holiday weather.”

  Scrubbers snickered slightly at that. Jack smiled back. His charming, easy, roguish grin. He imagined Arthur had one similar. “So leave your umbrella. I fancy a walk on the beach.” Scrubbers wilted slightly. For a moment Jack thought he might actually fight back, but instead his thin shoulders slumped forward in his jacket. He’d clearly been told to keep the locksmith happy.

  “All right. But bring it back tomorrow. My Jean will wonder where it’s gone.”

  As he watched Scrubbers run down the road with his collar up and head down against the increasing rain, Jack wondered why he’d done it. He had a good overcoat. He hadn’t even thought about going for a walk in this weather. Still, he had the umbrella now, and he couldn’t sit on his own in the same pub all day. Not without drawing attention to himself, and he didn’t need that, the day before the job started. A long walk in the fresh air might do him good. If he got tired enough, he might sleep all night even if the house fell down around his ears.

  THE BEACH WAS empty and the sea rolled angrily in the distance as it slowly made its way back to shore. Overhead seagulls cried to each other as they wheeled this way and that in the mist. The sound ached with loneliness and even in the brisk wind, he was sure he could hear the echo of “help me” that had plagued his dreams.

  MRS ARGYLE DIDN’T speak when she served his supper, and when he glanced up, Jack saw red rims around her eyes. Was that his fault? Had his actions in the night upset her so much? After hours of walking, he had been f
amished, but now his stomach rolled slightly as he forced himself to eat his pie and vegetables, not wanting to upset her further by leaving a full plate. Although he normally avoided interaction with other guests, he found he wished for Marshall-Jones’s irrepressible chatter. At least the other man would be back the next day. Each with their secrets, he and Mrs Argyle were like drifting ghosts in the house together. Talking but never really speaking, and now not talking at all.

  Why was she so closed? What was she hiding? What was going on in the room upstairs? He was a good judge of people, he had to be in his game, and she wasn’t a natural liar. The air of empty sadness that hung around her lacked the energy for deception. It was almost as if she had separated the lie from herself. And she was lying to him. If not, then why hadn’t she just unlocked the room and shown him there was nothing inside? That was all it would take.

  He thanked her quietly as she took his plate away and then retreated to his room to read. His mind kept wandering from the thin story, and he wished he’d bought a wireless to break the monotony, but he found that once he’d laid down, the long walk and sleepless nights took hold and he fell asleep, fully dressed, on top of the covers, by eight-thirty.

  THE MUSIC WAS louder than it had ever been, and as he woke his hands went straight to cover his ears. The notes turned to wet sobs as the now familiar footsteps creaked over his head. He turned the light on and looked at his watch, even though he knew what the time would be. Quarter to three. He pushed the covers back. His heart thumped. Enough was enough. Something smashed against a wall. For a moment there was silence and then the ceiling shook as the knocking started, and over and under it all was the terrible sobbing.

  Jack had his suitcase open and his tools out within minutes. This had to end. Sod showing his hand. Sod everything. He could get into the room, see what the hell was going on in there and be gone before Mrs Argyle had even woken up. Even with the racket upstairs, he felt a moment of regret at the thought. But this could not go on. Something had to be done.

  Out in the dark corridor, he made his way up the stairs. The sobbing and whispering seemed more distant, as if it were luring him onwards, and he fought his fear of it and took the steps two at a time. In the grip of the night and alone in the dark, he could no longer deny the possibility of the supernatural at work, and his insides trembled. But his curiosity was stronger than his fear. At the door, closing his mind from the terrible sounds that poured through the fibres of the wood, he crouched and set to work, letting his fingers feel for the click of the lock. It was a ten second job that he could do in his sleep, but with his hands trembling, it took several attempts before he finally felt it give. The noise on the other side fell silent.

  Jack stared at the door. His mouth dried. Now that he could, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to see inside the room at all. His hand, sweating in the palm, reached forward and twisted the handle.

  “Mr Hasting?” The light in the corridor below came on. He wasn’t the only one awake in the house. He stared at the door. This was his last point of return. He could go downstairs and pretend that the door up here was locked and then vanish in the morning. Or he could go in. Go in and see. He didn’t answer her call. Instead, he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  HE ONLY SAW her for an instant. She was vague, and almost transparent, standing in the middle of the room, sobbing. Her hair was longer and fuller, hanging down around her shoulders and dripping wet. Her soaking nightdress clung to her body, outlining each curve and line of her. On the floor, the music box was smashed. For the briefest moment, their eyes met and then she was gone, rushing past him and out through the door. He smelled dampness and moss, stagnant water in her wake, and then the pain hit him. Like white lightning in his heart. A terrible, terrible loss.

  On the floor below, Mrs Argyle cried out suddenly and then the house fell silent again.

  Jack flicked on the light and he saw.

  On the dresser were several framed photographs. A much younger Mrs Argyle smiling with a handsome man in uniform beside her. Wedding photos. His hand paused as he moved to the next. Mrs Argyle holding a baby, smiling with obviously bursting joy at the camera. In the wardrobe he found clothes, a man’s and a child’s. A little girl. Small shoes, small skirt. He was no judge of these things, but he guessed the owner at no more than six or seven.

  He looked around him. A doll lay on the bed, but boxes lined the walls, stacked high. Two lifetimes were neatly packed away and stored up here. His heart pounded. What had she done? What had he seen rushing out of here? He sat on the bed and listened to the crying coming from below. She cried for a very long time.

  IT WAS NEARLY dawn when he heard her coming up the stairs. She said nothing until she’d sat on the bed beside him, her cheeks raw from tears and her hands trembling. There was life back in her eyes, though. It was a terrible, aching life, but it was there.

  “He didn’t die in the war,” she said, eventually. “He came home to us. Me and Millie.” Her voice was thick with snot and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “He’d changed, though. He didn’t speak much. He kept saying he’d seen things. Terrible things. I just wanted to make things better. Like they were.”

  “What happened?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know.” Fresh tears filled her eyes. “I woke up early one morning and he wasn’t in bed. I knew…” – her eyes narrowed in the memory – “…just knew, then, that something was wrong. I could hear Millie’s music box playing. It was slowing down. I went to her room and she wasn’t there.” She paused for a long time, and Jack could hear his heart beating loud. Maybe it was hers. Maybe it was both of theirs. “I found them in the pond. He’d carried my sleeping baby to the water and drowned her. There was an empty bottle of Lysol on the grass and the doctors say he drank it. They said it would have been a very painful way to go. I tried to pull my baby out. But she was gone.”

  Jack said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

  “He must have hated me very much, I suppose. To have done such a thing. To have left me and taken Millie with him. I locked it all up here. Out of the way.” She looked at him, and he thought that her nearly-purple eyes had never looked so beautiful. “And now you’ve let it out. And I’m not sure I can bear it.”

  Jack put his arm around her shoulders. They sat like that until the morning poured in through the window and she had cried all she could for now.

  “I’m a thief,” he said, finally. “I break into places and help people steal things. Money and jewels, mainly.” Speaking the words aloud was like a boulder rolling from his back. No more locked away secrets. He felt her head move slightly against his chest.

  “Really?” she asked, her voice still thick with tears.

  “Yes.”

  “What was the last thing you stole?”

  He thought about that for a moment. He thought about Arthur, who would be waiting for him in the Red Lion at midday. He thought about Scrubbers. He thought about all those trains and journeys and inquisitive landladies. He thought about the warm feel of Mrs Argyle leaning into him.

  “An umbrella,” he said eventually. There was the slightest hitch of a laugh from the broken woman beside him. Only the ghost of a laugh, but he hoped that soon, he’d be able to let that out of its locked room too.

  VILLANOVA

  PAUL MELOY

  The story that follows is genuinely one of the most frightening I have read in a long time. Paul draws you in with characters that are utterly convincing and beautifully realised, before hitting you with a conclusion that will leave you winded. Read this and find out why I think Paul is one of the best writers currently working in genre fiction.

  i

  BY THE TIME they arrived at the campsite it was dusk. They had been driving all day on foreign roads, and they were cramped and irritable. Ken had misjudged the distance from Calais to La Tranche-sur-Mer; what he’d estimated to be a four or five hour drive through picturesque French countryside incorporating a couple
of comfort breaks along the way had turned into a ten hour slog along undistinguished motorways in heavy traffic.

  To compound the experience, an inexplicable satellite navigation error had led them off the toll road and on a detour through a town at rush hour with only about a hundred and fifty miles remaining on their journey. The name of the town mocked Ken: Angers. He knew the pronunciation would soften the word but nothing could be done to soften his mood as he cursed and sweltered through jammed and unfamiliar boulevards. He had to make a U-turn but had no idea of the legality of such a manoeuvre. The satnav remained mute on the subject. Finally he summoned his resolve and swung the car around at some traffic lights; no indignant horns blared, so he assumed he’d got away with it.

  Finally back on the motorway, Ken had put his foot down and, despite protestations from Katie and Holly, had finished the journey in one go. He refused to stop again and lose any more time. They would have to hold it in.

  Holly was almost in tears as Ken swung the car into the campsite. He stopped at a barrier and waited. To the right was a single storey building designated Reception. Next to that was a clubhouse. Ken could see the rapid fluttering of lights on a fruit machine. And behind that was a low concrete wall which appeared to encompass the pool. Just visible above the wall Ken could see the bright amber display of an L.E.D indicating the temperature of the water, the date and the time.