The Year's Best Horror Stories 10 Read online

  The hinges of the gate shrieked jaggedly; Pears felt as if the sound were being dragged through his ears. The children waited restlessly. “Go on, then,” he said, impatient with everything, and strode out, thinking: I should make them want to go, not bully them.

  The fog settled on him like wet cobwebs, drawing him deeper into itself. It closed him in with silence. He could hear no sound from the main road two hundred yards away. His muffled footsteps clopped; he could hardly hear the children’s. Andrew and Linda were diluted, dissolving smudgily into the fog.

  Odd blurs bobbed past: the mirror of a parked car, the overhanging tips of a tree. They faded, and the street seemed to fade with them. He was alone with fog. It closed on his face like a cold soft mask, trickling thickly into his lungs. A single paving-stone repeated itself underfoot, again and again, in a frame of fog. He couldn’t see the children now. He began coughing uncomfortably. Nor could he hear them.

  He gagged himself with one hand, and strained his ears. All his senses were muffled; his mouth and nose felt stuffed with wet smoke. The flat inexorable wall of fog stood close to him, boxing him in. He opened his mouth to shout, but it filled with a foggy cough. The children had gone.

  As he fought to speak, a dreadful suspicion choked him. He and the children hadn’t been alone in the fog. There had been a hulking shape that had paced them just behind the blinding wall, waiting until they became separated. He could feel its stealthy presence now, somewhere near. Its hands had grabbed the children’s mouths. It had dragged the children into an alley and stuffed gags into their mouths. Now it was turning to Linda—

  He heard the children’s muffled screams.

  For a moment he was fog, fluid, helpless. Then he smashed his way blindly forward, toward the cries. The grey slammed against his eyes, then fell back, acquiring an orange tinge. The children were waiting beneath the sodium lights of the main road, giggling nervously. Traffic moved by like a glacier, bleary lights gazing tearfully ahead. He’d never expected to be so glad to see a traffic jam.

  The children must have been playing hide and seek in the fog, they must have scared each other. Pears felt angry, and anxious to be sure that that was what had happened. But to interrogate them, or to lose his temper, would only cause further unpleasantness: best to leave it alone. Abruptly, Linda said to Andrew, “I’m sorry I was rude about your doll. I was mean.”

  “I was growing out of it anyway,” Andrew said.

  Oddly, they became less reluctant as they neared the school. They ran into the underpass eagerly enough, casting him a last glance at they went, flushed oval portraits in Balaclavas. He strolled to the bank, musing.

  They couldn’t have left more reluctant to come out than he had. But now, away from the house he felt no reluctance at all. At home they were all caught in a tight spiral of neuroses. Now he saw that, he knew how to free them. They must go away at the weekend, into the countryside. The fog stepped back before him, parting.

  He enjoyed the day. He joked with those of his colleagues who seemed gloomily befogged, until their polite smiles broke into spontaneity. He cleared his desk of the convoluted cases which had been gathering, piling up against his mind. He rang Chris at work. She sounded happier, and said she liked the idea of a day out.

  He felt affectionate toward everyone he saw or thought of. Almost everyone. He stole a look at the young industrial chemist’s account. No salary cheque had been received this month, and the account was overdrawn. So that’s why he sits around all day.

  Walking home, Pears felt ashamed of his snooping. It hadn’t even gained him anything. He hardly knew the man; he’d spoken to him only once, to ask him to subdue a howling guitar at midnight. These days the chemist’s flat was usually silent—inert was more the word. As he reached his road, Pears saw the chemist drive away in a van by one of the friends who’d visited him last night. Pears couldn’t help feeling glad to see him go.

  At dinner the children cheered the proposal of a day out. “I did feel odd yesterday,” Pears said. “And this morning too. It must have been something I ate. Didn’t you feel odd, Chris?”

  “You know I had a migraine. I don’t know about anything else.”

  “What about you two?” But they didn’t know what he meant any more than Chris seemed to; and when he remembered how he’d felt it seemed healthier to forget.

  The next day was cold and bright. They drove into North Wales. Slate hills were silver against pastel blue, white wafery clouds streaked the horizons. They parked in a village whose name they stumbled over, laughing helplessly. The village seemed full of slim spires, of churches built of plump bricks of creamy dough around rose windows. They sat outside a pub, watching tractors pass, a market in the street opposite, a pony cantering by. “I wish I had a book about ponies,” Linda said.

  They bought her one, and Watership Down for Andrew. As they walked back to the car, Chris said, “Do you think there’s a hotel?” There was: two cottages knocked together, with a double room and a single free. “I bet you are called Mrs Jones,” Linda told the landlady, who was. Andrew ran upstairs to read his book, and later they had to open the bedroom door to let the smell of dinner tempt him down.

  After dinner, they walked through the village. The streets were full of greetings and good-nights; distant windows came alight on the hills. An elderly couple said good night to them. They put the children to bed. Glancing through Andrew’s book, Pears found a poem which he thought was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever read. He read it aloud to them, letting himself go completely into the poem and into the children’s eyes; by the end he was almost in tears. The children said good night quietly. Later Chris and he made love tenderly, unhurried, tranquil. They lay and felt the wide night calm around them.

  “Now I think about it, you were right,” Chris said. “I did feel strange on Thursday.”

  “In what way?”

  She was asleep as soon as she’d said, “I don’t know why, I was jealous of you and Linda.”

  On Sunday Mrs Jones invited them to visit a friend’s farm. The farmer’s children were playing on a collapsed haystack. Andrew and Linda plunged into it shouting, pleading with their parents to join them. Urged on by Mrs Jones and her friends, Pears and Chris climbed the stack, pretending reluctance. At the top Linda began tickling Pears to make him roll down. Feeling her small fingers move over him, he froze for a moment. Then he retaliated, and while Andrew played with the other children—bringing him out of himself, Pears thought, good—he and Linda set about Chris. They rolled to the bottom entangled, laughing.

  The farmer’s wife insisted they stay for dinner. They drove home leisurely, through thin drifts of mist. The children slept in the back, nestling against Chris. Whenever he caught her eye in the mirror she smiled gently. Even Liverpool seemed refreshed by their outing; the long carriageway of Tuebrook was polished clean by frost and sodium light. The yellow paintwork of their house surged forward from the terrace to greet them. The flat next door was dark. Pears couldn’t remember ever having been so pleased to return home.

  On Monday evening he hurried home. Chris wouldn’t be back for an hour, the children were staying late at school for recorder practice. He’d had enough of the rusty gate. The tin of paint nudged his thigh. Paint now, oil tomorrow. Fog unrolled the street like a carpet for him, yards ahead. A light appeared in the flat next door. He didn’t bother looking.

  He’d climbed to the loft in search of a paint-brush when the sound began. It was a low rumbling, almost inaudible; for a while he wasn’t sure he heard it. Dust stirred wakefully in the dim charred light beneath the roof. The sound seemed to be deep in the walls; momentarily the uncoloured shapes around him in the loft appeared to be vibrating. Surely it couldn’t be thunder. Of course, it was a plane approaching overhead.

  He had just climbed down to the landing when he felt the sound inside him.

  It was growing there. It was a huge rusty lump of metal, sharp-cornered and jagged, exploding slowly from the
centre of his cranium, forcing its dull saw-toothed way out through his ears. He could taste it. His mouth tasted full of coins.

  Don’t let it be starting again! Please, no!

  He rushed for the stairs. Downstairs he wouldn’t be so close to the sound. But he had to halt at the top, clutching at the banister, for he was plummeting toward the hall like a plane out of control. As he’d moved, his head had gone hurtling uncontrollably forward and down, as if on a cable. Within him metal rasped heavily.

  By the time he reached the hall, gripping the banister and holding himself immobile on each step while his momentum subsided, the plane was fading. He sank gingerly into a chair in the living-room. The sound drained lazily away, a murmur, a whisper, cold and rough in his head; he couldn’t tell when it began to persist only in his imagination. He sat still. If he didn’t move nothing else would happen. It would all fade, he would feel it go and know when it was safe to move. The walls held themselves still, almost trembling with the effort.

  Soon he felt there was nothing wrong except the fog which now had night on its side. The privet hedge was sliced thin by a block of grey. He stood up to draw the curtains, but fell back into his chair. There was something out there he must watch for, to be prepared when it came. Each time he looked the fog had inched more of his surroundings into itself.

  Because the window was closed he didn’t hear them coming. The fog within the gateway stirred. The small forms were rising to the surface. They came slowly, like bodies floating up from grey mud. He heard the faint clang of the gate, then they were rushing toward the house. They came to the window and peered in at him, mouthing. Then a key was scrabbling at the front door.

  He knew their names, Andrew and Linda. But that didn’t help. He struggled to grasp memories before they came in. Andrew was both younger and older than his age, prone to trip over his own feet, over-sensitive. No use. Pears was coldly analysing a stranger, and every phrase was a cliche. And Linda—

  Memory deluged him, one image smashing against him again and again. Oh my God. Oh my God. How could he have had such feelings about a ten-year-old child, his own daughter? Even worse, how could he have tried to ignore them, forget them, pretend he’d meant Chris all the time? What was he becoming? Or had this secret self been waiting within him all the time?

  Linda ran in, flushed, excited. “Bet you can’t guess what we did today,” she said.

  She was all freed hair and pink flesh, palpitating. He clenched his fists down the sides of his chair, gouging his palms, trying to lock in a threatened explosion of nausea. “Tell me, tell me later,” he managed to say. “Go and play.”

  “But I wanted to tell you,” she said, hurt.

  “Not now.” Each time he spoke, another voice, muffled, joined him in chorus. It was his own. He tried to ignore it long enough to speak. “Go, go on,” he stammered.

  Their sounds in the playroom annoyed him like the bumbling of flies but at least he’d avoided further speech. He stared emptily at the encroaching fog. He wasn’t going mad, he wasn’t. But he couldn’t bear to think that what he’d been experiencing was real. Yet if he were going mad the horror was himself, dragging him deeper, saving its worst until all his defences were down—not yet even hinting at its worst His thoughts slithered, eluding him. He wasn’t mad. But there were states of mind similar to madness. Suddenly he knew he’d been drugged.

  How? In food. The chemist next door—Nonsense. He had neither opportunity nor motive. Detectives always looked for those. But Pears had detected a drug in himself, however it had got there. Chris, experimenting on behalf of the hospital—Rubbish. It was temporary. Bearable. Drugs didn’t drive sane people mad, drugs couldn’t overcome a strong mind, a mind that wouldn’t weaken, that was in control, they couldn’t. Perhaps Chris could determine what drug it was, and the antidote. The wall of fog shifted forward, hanging dull and slack, leaving only a cramped strip of dark bedraggled lawn.

  The children muttered in the playroom blurred. Pears lay back gingerly; his head felt thin-shelled, rocking with liquid. He closed his eyes and let sounds pass him by: Andrew’s toy train rattling on its cramped line, Linda’s padding bare-socked footsteps, Linda’s voice. His eyes sprang wide, glaring.

  “I want the bunny.” That was all she’d said. A frayed stuffed rabbit sat in the corner of the playroom, the children rarely bothered with it now. But Linda had just asked for it.

  She hadn’t really said, “He wants to fuck me.”

  Or perhaps she had. After all, she needn’t have meant her father. Of course she hadn’t meant him, Pears thought, his face burning. Then whom had she meant? God, surely nobody! She had just been trying out the word, as children do.

  She could have meant Pears. Young girls were supposed to go through a period of sexual love for the father. But wasn’t she too young? Perhaps not: perhaps hidden in her mind were pictures of her father pulling off her clothes, his huge hairy body pressing down on her, forcing her wider—

  He leapt up snarling. But his rage relieved him of nothing. He had to know. All he could hear now was what he thought she’d said. He strode into the hall, and balked. What could he say? He couldn’t accuse her directly in case his mind had tricked him. But why should his mind play that particular trick? He stood, trying to force himself forward; his hands felt bloated, and spiky with sweat. Andrew’s voice squeaked. The playroom door hung immobile, smugly threatening. Linda answered.

  She’d said, “We want to stick these blocks up here.” She hadn’t said—innocent? pretending? Some building blocks were scattered amid the clutter on the floor, but he demanded, “What were you saying?”

  When Linda gazed at him, perhaps without guile, and opened her mouth, he interrupted savagely, “You know what I mean. Just now. What were you saying?”

  She looked uneasy now. “I don’t know. What was I saying?”

  “Leave Andrew out of it, don’t try and make him answer for you. Don’t drag him into it, you little—”

  Her eyes were wider, rimmed with moisture. In a minute she would run to him in tears. He couldn’t bear to have her near him. If she touched him. “All right. All right. It doesn’t matter,” he stammered, to escape. “Just keep quiet,” he said, and slammed the door.

  He couldn’t shake off the suspicion that Linda had got the better of him. She had seduced him again: into silence. She was knowing, evil; her body was. It was taking over, possessing the little girl he’d loved. He mustn’t think of her.

  The fog had fitted to the windows like the backing of a mirror. A dull discoloured lump of flesh sat in his reflected armchair, staring at him. They were still gazing at each other when he heard Chris’ key in the lock.

  Fear burned through him. The children might tell her how he’d behaved. She’d known he was going wrong again. His eyes might betray him if she looked closely; drugs were supposed to show in the eyes. If her terror were added to his the onslaught would disintegrate him completely.

  Wasn’t he looking at it the wrong way? The inspiration lifted him to his feet. Being near her should help. It was exactly what he needed. He hurried after her, into the kitchen.

  “Hello,” he said. “I was going to paint the gate but the fog came down. I’ll do it tomorrow without fail. I’ll make myself if I have to. Not that I’ll have lost interest.” He was saying too much, too fast, trying to outrun his muffled other voice. “Do you like that colour paint? Never mind, don’t answer, you must be tired. Was your day all right?

  “It was all right.” She sounded a little weary. “You can get your own drink, Andrew. Don’t start nibbling, Linda, dinner won’t be long.”

  He avoided looking at the children. “Can I help you at all? Have you a migraine?”

  “No, not yet.” But all of a sudden Pears had. Perhaps she was in fact suffering secretly; but he was experiencing it directly. Perhaps he was imagining what migraine felt like. All he knew was that open metallic sores were burning coldly through his scalp; his cranium felt like a raw wound. Yet somehow
he wasn’t yet feeling the pain. If he weren’t with Chris it might fade. “You don’t want me to do anything, do you?” he gabbled, hurrying away, his scalp corroding.

  He’d managed to attune himself to the fog, to its untroubled colourless calm, when Chris called him to dinner. He walked down the hall, bearing his calm carefully. That telephone is red. That wall is yellow. No need to touch them with his mind.

  In the dining-room area he found he felt invulnerable. He smiled surreptitiously. The effect was wearing off. He raised a forkful of dinner to his mouth.

  He couldn’t taste it. He almost reached into his mouth with the fork to examine the food. Lamb chop, mint sauce, potatoes, sprouts; no taste of any of them, just solids moving in his mouth. It was all right. No need to strain. This was only reaction against what he’d been suffering, what did they call it, sensory overload.

  He chewed. Linda was gazing toward him as she ate.

  He’d been chewing for hours. Linda gazed at him.

  He chewed faster. Faster, faster. No use: he couldn’t make Linda move. His time was slowing to a halt. Each moment was only a fraction of the one before. They would never add up to the next; he was trapped in this moment forever. And Linda’s pictures of him were creeping toward his mind. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “What do you think you’re staring at?”

  Linda gasped. “I was just thinking.”

  Oh no, she couldn’t trick him again so easily. Her gaze had been slowing him down, as though time were amber. “Ah,” he snarled triumphantly. “And just what were you thinking, eh? Would it have been about me?”

  “I was just thinking about my recorder. I played a whole page, today.” She was nearly crying.

  Chris was staring at him. If he went on, she might suspect what had happened to him on Thursday night—when Linda had got the better of him. She mustn’t know that, nobody must know, he must wipe it out of his mind. “All right,” he told Linda abruptly. “It doesn’t matter. Get on with your dinner.”