The Year's Best Horror Stories 16

by Karl Edward Wagner (Ed. )

  But the two sisters became very preoccupied and rarely seemed to have time to spare for me. The word moving became commonplace.

  “We’ll talk about that, dear, after the moving.”

  “Come and see me after the moving, dear.”

  And when I asked what moving entailed, I was told:

  “You’ll know afterward, dear.”

  May I belatedly explain that all three sisters had always looked elderly, but more due to dress and deportment than physical appearance. Edith of course had looked the older because she was and ninety-eight is a burden of years to carry about. The other two were fairly tall and gaunt, but could easily be taken for ladies in their middle to late sixties.

  That was before Edith died.

  The interval that separated Edith’s death and her moving seemed to age them dreadfully. From lean they became emaciated. Eyes sank, teeth were bared in the likeness of a maniac’s grin, bones became merely a framework to support brown wrinkled skin. This deterioration was explained by Edna in the following words:

  “We both give a bit, dear, so as to make a whole. One day you will have to give for both of us.”

  The atmosphere both in the house and in the village was pretty grim, and after the episode of my waking to find something very cold in bed with me, I did begin to entertain ideas about moving out, but—greed is a great courage maker. I found I was one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds the richer by Edith’s death and I stood to gain twice as much when the other two sisters moved, so I prayed for the preservation of my sanity and stood firm if not steady.

  I suppose it must have been two weeks after the funeral when I began to realize that the vicar was hanging around the street in which the house stood, and could sometimes be seen taking a long time to tie up a shoelace on the other side of the road, ready to bolt should either of the great-aunts appear, but succumb to an attack of nods, winks and head jerking whenever I put foot over the front doorstep.

  His name was Humphrey Mondale, tall, thin and bald; a twisted stick of a man, who jerked in a forwardly direction rather than walked, and looked even more eccentric than the two remaining sisters. It was he who had galloped through the burial service on the occasion of Edith’s funeral. I kept well clear of him.

  But one morning he sprang out on me from the passage that ran between the post office and the public library and had a numbing grip on my left arm before I could get away.

  I think he either suffered from chronic catarrh or a perpetual bad head cold, for he spoke with a thick voice and sometimes blurred his syllables.

  “Must twalk,” he insisted, his head jerking from side to side on his thin neck, so I was reminded of a ventriloquist’s dummy when the head is pushed up too high. “Nephoo ... yes?”

  I said I was the nephew of the two maiden ladies who lived in Moss House, but he did not allow me to finish.

  “Twying to contact you for deys. Must stop moving. Turrible effect on local people. No one come to church for years. Churchyard shunned. Bishop won’t lesson.”

  I am one of those people who have a low sales’ resistance and once buttonholed find it very difficult to get away. The fellow insisted I go with him to the vicarage and what is more hung on to me like grim death to make certain I did. There a female counterpart of himself—plus an untidy mop of gray hair—was introduced as his sister. She gave me a strange look, crossed her two thumbs and said: “Not me as a good Christian woman, you don’t,” then ran into a small kitchen, from which she presently emerged carrying two mugs of weak tea.

  Mr Mondale pulled me into a room he called his den—tired old armchairs, a battered desk, plus for some reason the smell of stale urine and green water.

  I sank into a chair which instantly groaned and tried to do something dreadful to me with a broken spring. We didn’t say a great deal until his sister had served the weak tea, but I then managed to muster some indignant resolution and asked:

  “What is all this about, Mr Mondale? You dragged me in off the street, without so much as by your leave.”

  The tea must have done something for his cold for his speech delivery improved.

  “Distant member of the family myself, you know. Otherwise I’d have been moved long ago. You know the village is terrified of your aunts. Fear takes many forms. That scene by the churchyard the other day was one. But one day the aunts will really let rip—and then I’d hate to think what would happen. Particularly after a moving.”

  Curiosity got the better of irritation and I leaned forward to ask the all-important question:

  “What the hell—beg pardon—is this moving? They won’t tell me a thing. I thought they meant the actual moment of death, or even possibly the funeral. But apparently there’s something more ”

  The vicar leaned back in his chair and yawned at the ceiling in an effort to emphasize there was indeed more. Much more.

  “Good ... good Guard, yes. My word yes. It’s the moving which upsets the village and will in time bring the newspaper people—especially that Sunday lot—beating a trail to our doors. Fortunately it takes place at night and most people close their curtains and try to ignore what’s going on. Two years ago a foolhardy youth did come out and saw. He hasn’t spoken since and has dreadful fits of the shakes to this day.”

  I dragged my chair forward. “But ... but ... what did he see?”

  The Reverend Mr Mondale put out a hand. It was not particularly clean and the nails needed trimming.

  “Does that member shake?”

  “No.”

  “Would you say that is a steady hand with not a tremor about it?”

  “I would indeed.”

  “Surely that is evidence enough that I have never been such a fool as to peer through parted curtains when your aunts and that which is with them pass the house.”

  “Then you don’t know?”

  He jerked his head forward twice, his bad cold losing out to the strong emotion that now held his entire body in a masterly grip.

  “I can surmise, sir. I am not the only one who has had the merest glimpse of those who sometimes stray back from the grave and pay a social call on your aunts. Unfortunately churchyards have become associated with certain supernatural nastiness in the public mind. Can it be wondered at, that if at times, in some particular locality, the seeds of that nastiness come to full fruition? Eh?”

  I felt a need to confess, share a fear that up to that moment I had not been aware existed.

  “There’s a nasty atmosphere in the house. Things lurking behind the left shoulder—something cold in the bed—cold fingers on the throat, whispers in the dark.”

  The vicar raised both hands, then let them fall back on to the desk with a kind of soggy thump. “Ah! Then it was not imagination! I have seen white faces with runny eyes looking down from the upper windows! There is only one answer. That house must be razed to the ground and the ground itself sewn with salt.”

  “Look here, I’m going to inherit that house!”

  “Could you live there after the remaining aunts have moved?”

  “No, I’d sell it. Good development land.”

  Now the vicar raised his eyes ceilingward. “There is no piercing the armor of the mercenary ungodly.”

  I rose. “Thank you for all you have not told me.”

  I became more unhappy as the days passed, even more so when told Aunt Edith’s moving day would be the coming Thursday.

  Thursday has always been my unlucky day, I will probably die on a Thursday—and be moved the following Thursday.

  Edna laid a loving hand on my shoulder. “We say day, dear, in fact it’s night. Between eleven and twelve in the evening. The best time. The pub has turned out and all honest people are tucked up in bed. Others!” She shook her head, then tucked her chin in. “Others must take the consequences if they see that which they shouldn’t. After all, moving is strictly a family affair.”

  For the last three days I went for long walks and turned into an opposite direction whenever I saw the
Reverend Mondale, for he had now taken to pushing notes through the letter box begging me to burn the house down before the dreaded event, stating that if I didn’t, he would, an item of information I felt duty bound to pass on to the aunts.

  Edna tut-tutted and Matilda sighed deeply. “He was always a trial even as a boy. Edna, we can’t have Edith upset and besides this house is home for the entire family. There’s no help for it ...”

  Edna nodded slowly. “A visit from Cousin Judith.”

  “You think that will be sufficient?” Matilda asked with some anxiety.

  “Of course. You may remember the year the churchyard was flooded with the overflow from the chemical works?”

  “I most certainly do. A disgrace.”

  “Well, Cousin Judith has never been quite the same since. She is really in no fit state to visit anyone. Especially a nervous clergyman.”

  I had no more trouble from the Reverend Humphrey Mondale. He was found wandering the downs counting his fingers and expressing great surprise that they were all there. His sister was seen dancing naked on the village green singing a tuneless dirge that accompanied words that ran something like this.

  She ain’t got no fingers or toes,

  Her ears have gone, so has her nose,

  One leg’s turned green, the other blue,

  And both feet are nailed to a horse’s shoe.

  I actually prayed I would never see Cousin Judith.

  The great day dawned clear and bright. Far across the downs a dog barked—always far away—and nearer to hand a cock crowed and set in motion a series of other sounds that included my two great-aunts calling out, “Happy moving day, Edith,” which was acknowledged by the door of Edith’s room slamming all by itself. Well, it must have done. There was no one near it at the time and not so much as a breath of wind.

  When I looked out of the window I saw a small army of cats running down the center of the road, making for the downs. I was afterward informed they all collected on top of a mound called locally the Giant’s Grave, where they howled and spat for most of the day and part of the following night. You can’t ignore the fact that cats have a lot of know-how.

  The aunts were very busy all day. They took three baths—I only one. Edna baked lots of little round loaves, which she laid out all over the house. And believe me—they all disappeared. Then I was given the job of collecting large bunches of dandelions; they were mashed into a pulp in the kitchen sink, then boiled in the jam-making saucepan, before being ladled into saucers, which were also laid out all over the house.

  And you really must believe me again—every single one was licked clean as Oliver Twist’s gruel bowl.

  But come sunset and the action hotted up.

  Edna and Matilda put on long black robes, gray veils which had the effect of giving their faces a ghost like appearance, then inspecting me who was wearing the same black suit I’d worn at Edith’s funeral.

  “You look very nice, dear,” Edna commented. “Doesn’t he, Matilda?”

  Matilda nodded. At least I think she did. It was hard to tell what she was doing under that veil. “Yes. But I think he looks more handsome with his hair brushed back. Parted he reminds me of that assistant in the shoe shop who once laid a familiar hand on Edith’s ankle.”

  Then all three of us sat in the lounge exchanging small talk while waiting for the sun to set. Aunt Edna said she had not known such warm weather since dear Mary-Lou moved, and Aunt Matilda expressed a hope that the threatened rain would hold off until Edith was nicely settled.

  Presently I got tired of sitting and listening to their old voices and after excusing myself wandered out into the garden. Two young lads who had been keeping watch over the back wall, dropped out of sight while one shouted. “He’s got his funeral suit on! It must be tonight!” Shortly afterward I heard a vast amount of door shutting and the locking of windows.

  I looked upon a glorious sunset, but even as I watched little fat black clouds came drifting in from the east and set about demolishing that lovely scene, warning all who could read the message that night would soon position its platoons in both city and countryside.

  Aunt Edna called from the kitchen doorway:

  “Soon be time, David dear,” and indeed it was time to go indoors and face the horrors of unreality.

  Both sisters had donned something more than a long black robe and a gray veil. A complete new personality that hinted at an odd kind of professionalism. I cannot, try as I may, explain how this was so, save I had the impression they were drawing upon an enormous fund of experience, that normally would be locked away in some dark recess of their brains.

  I was pushed gently into the hall and made to face the stairs; Edna to my left and Matilda to my right. Both looked up the stairs with a kind of pathetic expectancy, before Edna called out in a quavering voice:

  “It’s time, Edith dear. It’s your moving time.”

  I waited, not really expecting anything particular to happen, but right deep down knowing it would.

  Edith’s bedroom door creaked open. The creaking was very drawn out as though someone with not too much strength to spare was pulling the door open very slowly.

  The creaking stopped. The heavy footsteps began.

  Edith-sized in granite—those were the words that flashed across my brain. Thump-thump-thump. The ceiling below must have trembled and possibly sent down a little shower of plaster. Very, very heavy footsteps that moved very, very slowly. They came out even more slowly on to the landing—and Edith emerged into view.

  My first impression—white—white—white—with black pupilless eyes that moved. Moved all the time. I think there may have been a tiny spot of light dead center, but I can’t swear to that, for I was not just frightened—I was one babbling mass of trembling, trouser-pissing, stomach-heaving terror. That thing—Edith—she—it—was white plastic marble. Take a statue of a woman in a long white robe, then give it movement, but with no expression on the face at all, save for those moving black eyes, and maybe the merest suggestion of a smile etched round the mouth—and you may—just may have some inkling of what that apparition looked like.

  Only it was no apparition, or if it was, a damned solid one.

  One dead white hand gripped the banister rail, then thump-thump down the stairs, with the two sisters shouting encouragement.

  “Come on, Edith dear ... that’s right ... don’t worry about chipping the paint, David can put that right tomorrow morning. Pick your feet up, won’t do to have you tumbling down like Cousin Jane did.”

  She thumped-thumped down those stairs and as she came nearer I began to notice little details, like the tiny mole under her left eye, only now it too was dead white, and the rather nice lock of hair that used to dangle over her forehead; now it really did looked like brilliantly carved marble. And—yes—it did seem as if the ghost of a smile was etched round her mouth.

  I had the impression it took quite an effort to step down into the hall, for she took some time to lower the left bare foot on to the fitted carpet, then hung on to the banister rail while she brought the right down to join it.

  In fact I believe some kind of restorative—not rest—non-action was required, a standing still interval, when the only movement was continuously rolling black, pupilless eyes.

  Presently Edna nudged me. “David! What are you thinking about, dear? Give your Auntie Edith a nice kiss.”

  God of my fathers—forgive me and save at least a remnant of my sanity—I BLOODY WELL DID IT. I kissed that cold horror and MY LIPS STUCK TO HER CHEEK. She was so cold my lips froze on contact and I left a strip of flesh behind when I pulled my mouth free. The two sisters looked at me reproachfully and Edna pushed a wad of tissues into my hand with a muttered: “Blood on the carpet!” then wiped what I had left behind from Edith’s cheek. You know, even in the midst of that body and brain numbing terror I still felt that I had blotted my copybook for kissing Aunt Edith too hard and messing up the hall carpet.

  Edith went into action
again. Very slowly along the hall, a careful walk over the front doorstep, then down the garden path to the front gate. We lined up on the pavement.

  Edith in front. She was the pace setter. Edna next. Then Matilda with me bringing up a very reluctant rear. As we progressed down the High Street a gurgling scream came from a window over the butcher’s shop, before a bright red curtain quivered and fell away, as though some falling body were clinging to it.

  Matilda shook her head sadly. “Peepers weepers. There’s always one who just won’t learn.”

  After a while, when I had recovered sufficiently to think of something other than my own terror, I noticed that out here in the open Edith shone. Or glimmered whitely. When the moon slid behind a cloud bank she positively glowed. Like illuminated snow.

  But she did look fearsome. I could well understand that someone who wasn’t family and had not been acclimatized by degrees, giving vent to a howling scream just prior to slipping down into the pit of madness.

  The cats on the Giant’s Grave were letting rip now and the dogs seemed determined not to be outdone, and believe you me there is no sound more hideous on this earth than the united howls of a hundred or more cats and dogs.

  We left the village behind and Edna and Matilda began to sing “Home Sweet Home” and the way they sang it, I could hardly tell the difference between their din and that made by the cats and dogs.

  The churchyard lane was full of potholes and I wondered what would happen if Edith were to stumble and fall flat on her white cold face, but fortunately that did not happen, although I almost knocked Matilda over when I tripped on a ruddy great stone.

  We moved into the churchyard and eventually came to the mound of earth that covered all that I recognized as Edith’s earthly remains.

  Now comes the awful part.

  Edith stood beside her grave and stared at the old church, rolling those dreadful black eyes and rather giving the impression she wasn’t all that keen about doing whatever came next. Edna whispered, “You move in, dear. Can’t leave you standing here. The locals just wouldn’t understand. And when the sun comes up, dear, you’ll catch your death of heat.”