The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories

by Stephen Jones

  “You! Saucy sod.”

  “You don’t know what surviving a fatal air crash does for one’s libido,” Adam said, and he realized it was true. He could feel the heat of Alison’s arm through his shirtsleeve, feel her hip nudging against his. He felt himself growing hard, so he turned away and looked at the opposite parapet. There was a date block set in there, testifying that the bridge had been built over a hundred years ago. He tried to imagine the men who had built it, what they had talked about as they were pointing between the stones, whether they considered who would cross the bridge in the future. Probably not. Most people rarely thought that far ahead.

  Something glittered in the compressed leaves at the base of the wall. He frowned, squinted, and leaned forward for a closer look. Something metallic, perhaps, but glass as well. He crossed the quiet road and bent down to see what it was.

  “Adam? What have you found, honey?”

  Adam could only shake his head.

  “Honey, we should go, young rascal’s getting restless. He needs his slide and swing fix.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Adam gasped.

  “What is it?”

  He took the watch back to Alison, gently wiping dirt from its face and picking shredded leaves from the expanding metal strap. He showed it to her and watched her face.

  “Does it work?”

  He looked, tapped it against his palm, looked again. The second hand wavered and then began to move, ticking on from whatever old time it had been stuck in. Strangely, the time was now exactly right.

  “Looks quite nice,” she said, cringing as Jamie twisted eel-like in her arms.

  “Nice? It’s priceless. It’s Dad’s. You remember Dad’s old watch, the one he left me, the one we lost in the move?”

  Alison nodded and stared at him strangely. “We moved here six years ago.”

  Adam nodded, too excited to talk.

  It told the right time!

  “Six years, Adam. It’s not your dad’s watch, just one that looks a bit—”

  “Look.” He flipped the strap inside out and showed his wife the back of the watch casing. For Dear Jack, love from June, it said. Jack, his father. June, his mother.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Jamie gurgled, and they looked at each other and laughed because their swearing son took their attention for a moment, stole it away from this near-impossibility.

  They walked in silence, Adam studiously cleaning dirt from the watch, checking its face for cracks, winding it, running his fingers over the faded inscription.

  At the entrance to the park Alison let Jamie run to the playground and took the timepiece from Adam. “What a stroke of luck,” she said. “Oh, you’ve put it right.”

  Adam did not say anything. He accepted the watch back and slipped it into his pocket. Maybe this was something that would make a nice end to his interview with the newspaper, but straight away he knew he would never tell them.

  With Jamie frolicking on the climbing frame and Alison hugging him, Adam silently began to get his story straight.

  Nobody is news forever, even to the ones they love. Stories die down, a newer tragedy or celebrity gossip takes first place, family problems beg attention. It’s something to do with time, and how it heals and destroys simultaneously. And luck, perhaps. It has a lot to do with luck.

  Three weeks after leaving hospital, Adam’s name disappeared from the papers and television news, and he was glad. Those three weeks had exhausted him, not only because he was still aching and sore and emotionally unhinged by the accident—although he did not feel quite as bad as everyone seemed to think he should—but because of the constant, unstinting attention. He had sat through that painful first interview, the paper had run it, he and Alison had been paid. Days later a magazine called and requested one interview per month for the next six months. The airline wrote to ask him to become involved with the accident investigation, and to perhaps be a patron of the charity hastily being set up to help the victims’ families. A local church requested that he make a speech at their next service, discussing how God has been involved in his survival and what it felt like to be cradled in the Lord’s hand, while all those around him were filtering through His divine fingers. The suggestion was that Adam was pure and good, and those who had died were tainted in some way. The request disgusted him. He told them so. When they persisted he told them to fuck off, and he did not hear from them again.

  His reaction was a little extreme, he knew. But perhaps it was because he did not know exactly what had saved him.

  He turned down every offer. He had been paid twenty thousand pounds by the newspaper, and nobody else was offering anywhere near as much. Besides, he no longer wanted to be a sideshow freak: Meet the miracle survivor!

  The telephone rang several times each night—family, friends, well-wishers, people he had not spoken to for so long that he could not truly even call them friends anymore—and eventually he stopped answering. Alison became his buffer, and he gave her carte blanche to vet the calls however she considered appropriate.

  This was how he came to speak to Philip Howards.

  Jamie was in bed. Adam had his feet up on the sofa, a beer in his hand, and a book propped face-down on his lap. He was staring at the ceiling through almost-closed eyes, remembering the crash, his thoughts dipping in and out of dream as he catnapped. On the waking side, there was water and the nudge of dead bodies; when he just edged over into sleep, transparent shapes flitted behind his eyes and showed him miracles. Sometimes the two images mixed and merged. He had been drinking too much that evening.

  Alison went straight to the telephone when it rang, sighing, and Adam opened one eye fully to follow her across the room. They had been having a lot of sex since he came home from hospital.

  “Hello?” she answered, and then she simply stood there for a full minute, listening.

  Adam closed his eyes again and thought of the money. Twenty thousand. And the airline would certainly pay some amount in compensation as well, something to make them appear benevolent in the public eye. He could take a couple of years off work. Finish paying the mortgage. Start work on those paintings he had wanted to do for so long.

  He opened his eyes again and appraised his artist’s fingers where they were curved around the bottle. He was stronger there, more creative. He felt more of an emotional input to what he was doing. The painting he had started two weeks ago was the best he had ever done.

  All in all, facing death in the eye had done wonders for his life.

  “Honey, there’s a guy on the phone. He says he really has to talk to you.”

  “Who is it?” The thought of having to stand, to walk, to actually talk to someone almost drove him back to sleep.

  “Philip Howards.”

  Adam shrugged. He didn’t know him.

  “He says it’s urgent. Says it’s about the angels.” Alison’s voice was in neutral, but its timbre told Adam that she was both intrigued, and angry. She did not like things she could not understand. And she hated secrets.

  The angels! Adam’s near-death hallucination flooded back to him. He reached up to touch the scars on his cheek and Alison saw him do it. He stood quickly to prevent her asking him about it, covering up the movement with motion.

  She looked at him strangely as he took the receiver from her. He knew that expression: We’ll talk about it later. He also knew that she would not forget.

  “Can I help you?”

  There was nothing to begin with, only a gentle static and the sound of breathing down the line.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re one of the lucky ones,” the voice said. “I can tell. I can hear it in your voice. The unlucky ones—poor souls, poor bastards—whatever they’re saying, they always sound like they’re begging for death. Sometimes they do. One of them asked me to kill her once, but I couldn’t do it. Life’s too precious for me, you see.”

  Adam reeled. He recalled his dream again, the island of unlucky souls su
rrounded by the stinking moat. He even sniffed at the receiver to see whether this caller’s voice stank of death.

  “Has something happened?” the man continued. “Since you came back, has something happened which you can’t explain? Something wonderful?”

  “No,” Adam spoke at last, but then he thought, the watch, I found Dad’s watch!

  “I’m not here to cause trouble, really. It’s just that when this happens to others, I always like to watch. Always like to get in touch, ask about the angels, talk about them. It’s my way of making sure I’m not mad.”

  The conversation dried for a moment, and Adam stood there breathing into the mouthpiece, not knowing what to say, hearing Philip Howards doing the same. They were like two dueling lovers who had lost the words to fight, but who were unwilling to relinquish the argument.

  “What do you know about them?” Adam said at last. Alison sat up straight in her chair and stared at him. He diverted his eyes. He could not talk to this man and face her accusing gaze, not at the same time. What haven’t you told me, her stare said.

  The man held his breath. Then, very quietly: “I was right.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Can we meet? Somewhere close to where you live, soon?”

  Adam turned to Alison and smiled, trying to reassure her that everything was all right. “Tomorrow,” he said.

  Howards agreed, they arranged where and when, and the strangest phone call of Adam’s life ended.

  “What was that?” Alison asked.

  He did not know what to say. What could he say? Could he honestly try to explain? Tell Alison that her mother had been right in what she’d told Jamie, that angels really had caught and saved him?

  Angels, demons, fairies … gods.

  “Someone who wants to talk to me,” he said.

  “About angels?”

  Adam nodded.

  Alison stared at him. He could see that she was brimming with questions, but her lips pressed together and she narrowed her eyes. She was desperately trying not to ask any more, because she could tell Adam had nothing to say. He loved her for that. He felt a lump in his throat as he stooped down, put his arms around her shoulders, and nuzzled her neck.

  “It’s all right,” he said. Whether she agreed or not, she loved him enough to stay silent. “And besides,” he continued, “you and Jamie are coming too.”

  He never could keep a secret from Alison.

  Later than night, after they had made love and his wife drifted into a comfortable slumber with her head resting on his shoulder, Adam had the sudden urge to paint. This had happened to him before but many years ago, an undeniable compulsion to get up in the middle of the night and apply brush to canvas. Then, it had resulted in his best work. Now, it just felt right.

  He eased his arm out from beneath Alison, dressed quickly and quietly, and left the room. On the way along the landing he looked in on Jamie for inspiration, then he carried on downstairs and set up his equipment. They had a small house—certainly no room for a dedicated studio, even if he was as serious about his art now as he had been years ago—so the dining room doubled as his workroom when the urge took him.

  He began to paint without even knowing what he was going to do.

  By morning, he knew that they had lost their dining room for a long, long time.

  “You’re a very lucky man,” Philip Howards said. He was sitting opposite Adam, staring over his shoulder at where Alison was perusing the menu board, Jamie wriggling in her arms.

  Adam nodded. “I know.”

  Howards look at him intently, staring until Adam had to avert his gaze. Shit, the old guy was a spook and a half! Fine clothes, gold weighing down his fingers, a healthy tan, the look of a traveled man about him. His manner also gave this impression, a sort of weary calmness that came with wide and long experience, and displayed a wealth of knowledge. He said he was seventy, but he looked fifty.

  “You really are. The angels, they told you that didn’t they?”

  Adam could not look at him.

  “The angels. Maybe you thought they were fairies or demons. But with them, it’s all the same thing really. How did you get those scars on your cheek?”

  Adam glanced up at him. “You know how or you wouldn’t have asked.”

  Howards raised his head to look through the glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. He was inspecting Adam’s face. “You doubted them for a while.”

  Adam did not nod, did not reply. To answer this man’s queries—however calmly they were being put to him—would be to admit to something unreal. They were dreams, that was all, he was sure. Two men could share the same dreams, couldn’t they?

  “Well, I did the same. I got this for my troubles.” He pulled his collar aside to display a knotted lump of scar tissue below his left ear. “One of them bit me.”

  Adam looked down at his hands in his lap. Alison came back with Jamie, put her hands on his shoulders and whispered into his ear. “Jamie would prefer a burger. We’re not used to jazzy places like this. I’ll take him to McDonald’s—”

  “No, stay here with me.”

  She kissed his ear. “No arguing. I think you want to be alone anyway, yes? I can tell. And later, you can tell. Tell me what all this is about.”

  Adam stood and hugged his wife, ruffled Jamie’s hair. “I will,” he said. He squatted down and gave his son a bear hug. “You be a good boy for Mummy.”

  “Gut boy.”

  “That’s right. You look after her. Make sure she doesn’t spend too much money!”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Howards,” Alison said.

  Howards stood and shook her hand. “Charmed.” He looked sadly at Jamie and sat back down.

  Alison and Jamie left. Adam ordered a glass of wine. Howards, he knew, was not taking his eyes from him for a second.

  “You’ll lose them,” he said.

  “What?”

  Howards nodded at the door, where Alison and Jamie had just disappeared past the front window. “You’ll lose them. It’s part of the curse. You do well, everyone and everything else goes.”

  “Don’t you talk about my family like that! I don’t even know you. Are you threatening me?” He shook his head when the old man did not answer. “I should have fucking known. You’re a crank. All this bullshit about angels, you’re trying to confuse me. I’m still not totally settled, I was in a disaster, you’re trying to confuse me, get money out of me—”

  “I have eight million pounds in several bank accounts,” Howards said. “More than I can ever spend … and the angels call themselves Amaranth.”

  Adam could only stare open-mouthed. Crank or no crank, there was no way Howards could know that. He had told no one, he had never mentioned it. He had not even hinted at the strange visions he experienced as he waited to die in the sea.

  “I’ll make it brief,” Howards said, stirring his glass of red wine with a finely manicured finger. “And then, when you believe me, I want you to do something for me.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I was on holiday in Cairo with my wife and two children. This was back in ’59. Alex was seven. Sarah was nine. There was a fire in the hotel and our room was engulfed. Alex … Alex died. Sarah and my wife fled. I could not leave Alex’s body, not in the flames, not in all the heat. It just wasn’t right. So I stayed there with him, fully expecting rescue. It was only as I was blinded by heat and the smoke filled my lungs that I knew no rescue was going to come.

  “Then something fell across me—something clear and solid, heavy and warm—and protected me from the flames. It took the smoke from inside me … I can’t explain, I’ve never been able to, not even to myself. It just sucked it out, but without touching me.

  “Then I was somewhere else, and Amaranth was there, and they told me what a lucky man I was.”

  Adam shook his head. “No, I’m not hearing this. You know about me, I’ve talked in my sleep or … or …”

  “Believe me, I’ve never been to bed with y
ou.” There was no humor in Howards’s comment.

  How could he know? He could not. Unless …

  “Amaranth saved you?”

  Howards nodded.

  “From the fire?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they took you … they took you to their place?”

  “The streets of Paris and then a small Cornish fishing village. Both filled with people of good fortune.”

  Adam shook his head again, glad at last that there was something he could deny in this old man’s story. “No, no, it was London and Italy and then America somewhere, New York I’ve always thought.”

  Howards nodded. “Different places for different people. Never knew why, but I suppose that’s just logical really. So where were the damned when you were there?”

  “The damned …” Adam said quietly. He knew exactly what Howards meant but he did not even want to think about it. If the old man had seen the same thing as he, then it was real, and people truly did suffer like that.

  “The unlucky, the place … You know what I mean. Please, Adam, be honest with me. You really must if you ever want to understand any of this or help yourself through it. Remember, I’ve been like this for over forty years.”

  Adam swirled his wine and stared into its depths, wondering what he could see in there if he concentrated hard. “It was an island,” he said, “in a big lake. Or a sea, I’m not sure, it all seemed to change without moving.”

  Howards nodded.

  “And they were crucified. And they were burning them.” Adam swallowed his wine in one gulp. “It was horrible.”

  “For me it was an old prison,” Howards said, “on the cliffs above the village. They were throwing them from the high walls. There were hundreds of bodies broken on the rocks, and seagulls and seals and crabs were tearing them apart. Some of them were still alive.”

  “What does this mean?” Adam said. “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know what to tell Alison.”

  Howards looked down at his hands where they rested on the table. He twirled his wedding band as he spoke. “I’ve had no family or friends for thirty years,” he said. “I’m unused to dealing with such … intimacies.”