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  Not fade away

  It had been a good session.

  EVERY TIME YOU SAY I LOVE YOU by Charles L. Grant

  Charles L. Grant was born in New Jersey in 1942 and has lived in that state all his life, except for four years at Trinity College in Connecticut and two years as an MP in Vietnam. Grant’s first story was published in 1968, while he was working as a high school teacher. He turned to writing full-time in 1975 and has now published more than ten novels, over fifty short stories, and edited several anthologies of horror fiction, including the annual Shadows series from Doubleday. In 1981 two excellent collections of Grant’s short fiction were published: A Glow of Candles (Berkley Books) and Tales from the Nightside (Arkham House). His most recent books include The Nestling (Pocket Books) and The Bloodwind (Popular Library), both novels, and a collection of four original novelettes, Nightmare Seasons (Doubleday).

  Not surprisingly, Grant draws upon the familiar setting of northeastern suburban society for most of his writing—notably the western Connecticut town of Oxrun Station, a well-to-do bedroom community that you won’t find on any map. At least, I hope not. Most of Grant’s fiction is concerned with middle class suburban life: interpersonal conflicts between husbands and wives, parents and children; unfamiliar terrors in familiar surroundings. Quiet horror. “Every Time You Say I Love You” was written during a Nashville science fiction convention. Its setting and theme are typical of Grant’s work. Its denouement ... Must have been an interesting convention.

  The sunset bled from shades of blood to shades of dying. What few birds nested in the backyard elms were silent, leaving the nightvoice to tree frogs and passing cars and the frantic muffled beating of a moth against the kitchen’s screen door. Ken watched until he thought he heard it screaming, turned away and reached for the bottle in the middle of the table. There was barely enough bourbon left to cover the bottom of the glass. He stared at it bleakly. The effort required to lift and pour, lift and swallow, outweighed by the effect of weary consideration.

  A look to the passageway, long and dark and webbed with whispers, stretching through the house to the front door. A look to the white-faced, round-faced, faintly dusty clock over the stove. A look to his hands clutched and quivering at his stomach.

  It would work, he told himself sternly; it would work, it would work. Litany. Ritual. It would work, damnit, it would work. Litany. Ritual. Please let it work.

  He had to be sure. He had to make himself feel sure. This time it would work, and he could come back inside when it was done, and Louise would be standing at the refrigerator, smiling at him, handing him a slice of bologna or a wedge of Boston cream pie while she licked her lingers with feigned and laughing guilt; he would come back inside and she would be sitting at the table with a glass of cream sherry in her hands and talking about excessive violence in hockey while in the same breath she threatened various of his clients with personal castration if they didn’t pay up; he would come back inside and Louise would be there. There. Just ... there.

  It would work. Please let it work.

  The moth rested, was startled by the clicking approach of a nightbeetle, and vanished.

  Ken was alone.

  He shuddered as a way to rid himself of doubt. Took several deep breaths to keep the ice from his blood. Then he put his palms to his cheeks, his fingers shoved into the brown sweep of his hair. Slowly—a year, two, three—he lowered his elbows to the grey tabletop and rested. Five minutes later he began to weep over the empty, still warm glass.

  It began as a fleck of soot behind his eyes. He blinked rapidly, hard, his throat constricted, his tongue pressed against the back of clenched teeth. (Lou; think of Lou) Another deep breath held, held, whistled silently between his lips. (Lou) (lou) The sound of someone stirring fitfully in troubled sleep. A choking. The blinking. An explosion of groans that scaled high into whimpers.

  And he wept.

  For ten minutes. For fifteen. His hands against his cheeks, the tears sweeping from his chin and into the glass.

  And when he was done, shivering and sighing, he wiped his face quickly with a sleeve and cupped the glass in his hands. The tears filled the bottom. He rose unsteadily. He waited for balance. He hurried outside and down the porch steps. There was an oval garden on the left, but he ignored it in the dark; there was a gazebo moonlight prim on the right, but he refused to see it as the place where he loved her on summer nights like this. Instead, he moved as swiftly as he dared without running, the glass catching shards of light, the grass hissing wetly beneath his soles. The cherry tree was straight ahead. Lou’s tree. Planted when they were first married, grown to strew pink, to shed white whenever spring let loose the wind.

  Let it work. (lou)

  And he tripped over a rake buried in the tall grass. He cried out enraged anguish and fell to his knees. The glass jumped from his hands, arced, mocked, fell and shattered. The tears vanished instantly and Ken Morgan screamed.

  Just before midnight a hand feathered to his shoulder. He didn’t feel it at first, then tried to shrug it off. It gripped, massaged, and he felt more than heard someone kneeling awkwardly beside him.

  “Ken?”

  He had been beyond thinking, feeling only the press of the night.

  “Ken, a neighbor—that old guy over there—he called me. He thought you were being murdered or something.”

  He kept asking himself what the hell he had to do, what the hell it would take. Oh, Lou—god, I’m sorry. I had the tears and everything and I blew it. I blew it.

  “Come on, Ken, it’s getting chilly. Come on. You’ll be all right. Come on, come on.” Both shoulders taken now, strength pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go inside, pal, there’s nothing out here.”

  Hell, he thought wearily, I’ve blown it again. And once inside he stumbled to the sink and ran cold water from the tap, splashing it against his face until he was able to smile without it seeming rictus. The flesh tightened across his cheeks, his eyes no longer burned. He turned the faucet off and glanced up at the clock. Maybe I had the time wrong. He shrugged, turned, regarded his friend smiling.

  Walter Trace was heavy, slipping into rotund, his hair blond, close to white and brushed straight back behind his ears. He wore a plaid shirt, creased trousers, slippers on his feet to indicate his haste. Abbott and Costello, Ken thought as he used a coarse paper towel to dry his face and hands; he knew that’s what the rest of the office called them, not in derision but in good-natured awe of the way they complemented each other in the firm, and in the courtroom.

  “You all right now?”

  He nodded, tossed the wadded towel into the sink and took the chair opposite Trace. “Actually,” he said, “I feel like an idiot.”

  “You should.” Trace’s voice was pitched high, almost whining. “Damnit, Ken!” He left hand pounded the table once. “Damnit, what the hell were you doing out there this time, sacrificing goats?”

  Indignation was swallowed with difficulty behind a harsh rubbing of his face. Composure, he cautioned; composure, or you’ll kill him. “I deserve that, I guess.”

  “Damn right.”

  “What I was doing ...” He sniffed, tugged idly at an earlobe. “Well, see, I read this story about—”

  Trace groaned and reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

  “—this guy who brought his lover back with tears. In a glass. He had to collect them, see. It was British, I think.” He shrugged. “Hell, I’ve tried everything else, you know?”

  “No shit,” said Trace. His voice lowered. “Ken, I’m afraid I can’t cover for you anymore. And ... hell, I’m afraid.”

  “Not of me!”

  “No, for you. Lord, you’d think the way you’ve been acting you were the only man in the world whose wife ... nuts. Nuts, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ken, there was no call for that.”

  He held up a palm. “Don’t be. It’s okay. You’d be as crazy as I am if you didn’t care. As a matter of fact, I’d be worried if you weren’t. Caring
, that is.”

  A minute died in silence. Not quite awkward, not quite comfortable. Ken wished his friend would leave him. Now. He needed to be alone. He needed Lou, he needed her badly. But Trace only leaned back in his chair and hooked his thumbs under his belt. The cigarette lay burning acridly in a saucer between them.

  “I’ve told everyone in the office you’d be in on Monday.”

  Ken bridled, inhaled, hissed out control. “You’re determined, I’ll say that.”

  “I’m your friend, damnit, for one thing. For another, we need you downtown.”

  “I’m not indispensable.”

  “No,” Trace agreed without flinching, “but we make more money when you’re there than when you’re not.” He grinned to ease the sting. “Now look, I want you to listen to me, Ken. When Louise died—”

  “Was killed,” he corrected softly.

  “—we were more than willing to give you plenty of room, to accommodate you, make sure you were okay. I mean, hell, you know what I mean. But, Ken, the time’s up. At least they think so, and they’re still the senior partners, not us, not yet.” He waited, but Ken only examined the clasp of his hands. “And I want you to stop all this other crap, too.”

  “I love her.”

  “A lot of men love their wives, Ken. But as far as I know, not one of them, not a single one of them has tried to bring them back from the dead.” He sliced at the air to forestall interruption. “Sure they find the loss hard to take, who wouldn’t? But, Ken, they accept it. Time passes and they accept it. They have to or it’s all over for them. Maybe the pain never really goes completely away, I don’t know. And to tell you the truth, I’d just as soon not. All I can say is, we’ve supported you, we’ve backed you, and now you have to snap out of it. If you don’t—good god, they’ll be coming after you with nets, for god’s sake.”

  Ken listened, heard, tried to decide what the right things were to say.

  “Ken, please.” Trace reached across the table and grabbed hold of his wrists. “Please.” His face creased with concern. “You know,” he said, releasing him and leaning back again, “I once thought this stuff you’d gotten into would do you some good. Help you work it all out somehow. It hasn’t. I mean, I guess there are some guys who think about what you’re doing, but that’s all they do, Ken. Think about it. They don’t ...”

  Ken didn’t need to follow the catalogue Trace spread before him. The cat, the bird, the doll, the chanting, the strips of oak bark, the weavings of dead grass—these were what Trace knew about, all Ken had told him. Trace hadn’t heard, however, about the blood of a child, the seed of a bull, the head of a serpent, the hair of a corpse. He also didn’t know about the prayers that had been uncovered, the symbolic rites, the midnight rituals, the dawn prostrations. If Trace had ever guessed at the truth, he might not be so eager to rush over whenever someone complained about the widower in the yard.

  Maybe he was right. It was getting dangerous. The next time out, the old man might even call the police.

  “—at nine o’clock.” Trace stood. “If you’re not there, Ken, I don’t know what ...” He finished with a helpless, handwashing shrug.

  Ken nodded his understanding, took the man’s arm lightly and guided him down the passageway toward the front door. “No problem,” he said. “And I’ll be all right I guess all I needed was tonight.” He grinned sheepishly. “You can count on me again, Walter. I’ll be there Monday morning, first thing, with bells on.”

  Trace looked at him somewhat doubtfully, struggled before putting his hand to Ken’s shoulder. “We’ve known each other for a long time, pal. We go a long way back. Not many men at forty can say that these days.” Ken was afraid the man was going to cry. “I still have the number of that shrink, you know. It’s no disgrace anymore. See him. Come back to us whole.” He embraced Ken quickly, swallowed hard and left.

  Ken waited at the threshold until the taillights were swallowed by the curve of the drive. Then he closed the door slowly and leaned his weight against it. No two ways about it, the man was right. He was calling too much unwanted attention to himself with all this mad behavior, and there was no profit left in blaming it on grief. If he continued to do so, that shrink might become mandatory and he would have a hell of a time breaking free again.

  The trouble was, Lou had been a woman whose intense hold on her living had affected nearly everyone around her. Each of the seasons had vibrated with her presence, each of her embraces more joyful than the last. She had created their twenty-year marriage out of laughter, their house out of love, had nudged his career along without him minding at all. He had had no idea how much he had used her simply for breathing until the afternoon that camper had jumped the curb downtown and pinned her against the wall. Pinned her. Like a butterfly. Arms/wings flailing, weaker, weaker, until red slipped from her mouth and took her life with it.

  Even now he couldn’t remember (didn’t want to remember) the police talking with him, the man who had driven the vehicle weeping over his guilt. And the funeral—grey figures, black figures, a brilliant spring afternoon, no rain whatsoever, not a cloud in the sky. Children playing in yards as the cortege passed by. Dogs snapping at the wheels of the slow-moving hearse. A baseball game in a sandlot. Sun. Blue. Flowers. The cherry tree blossoming as if she hadn’t left at all.

  And she hadn’t.

  Grief had been immersion in freezing clear water. Once accustomed, it settled, flowered, became a part of him, became his reason. He had almost decided he was ready for work when he’d read about a woman who had robbed her child’s grave because she wanted to perform some voodoo rites on the body. Ken sympathized. Empathized. Went to bed that night and dreamt of Lou and her lips and her arms and the smile that provided lanterns through every phase of night.

  He told himself he was crazy, but he robbed her grave anyway. Opened the coffin. Took her home.

  It was a hell of a big house, and, my god, he was lonely.

  The magic began. Or the attempts to create it. And he wondered as he climbed the stairs if perhaps he didn’t believe in it enough. If a part of his soul was still telling him he was crazy. Something was missing for sure, something vital in the process. Lou still wasn’t the same as she had been when alive, and he couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing wrong.

  He stood on the threshold of the bedroom and stared sorrowfully at their bed. Listened to the sounds of the house sighing down around him. Then he crossed the thick carpeting to sit on the mattress. Stretched, then began to take off his shoes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He hadn’t turned on the light.

  Socks. Shirt. Trousers. Scratching at his chest, his groin, over his thighs to the curve of his knees.

  “Honest to god, I don’t know what else to do.”

  He rubbed his hair vigorously, then combed it back with his fingers.

  “Walter says I have to go back to work. There’ll be hell to pay if I don’t. And I can’t really argue with him. I can’t keep this big house unless I start bringing in the checks again.”

  Naked now he stretched, yawned, rose and folded back the quilt and the crisp brown sheet. Patted the arrangement and went into the bathroom. Showered, used the toilet, brushed his teeth, brushed his hair. Back into the bedroom. The drawn shades refused the moonlight entry, but he knew his way blind to the far paneled wall.

  “Hell, there’s still lots of things left, though, you know. I just have to be more careful from now on, that’s all. Some of the things you need are kind of hard to get. Like bodies. I don’t know. The kid was easy, but I don’t know ...”

  He exercised for half an hour, lay on the carpet for five minutes to feel the warmth spread over his limbs.

  “But I don’t want you to think I’m going to give up. I’m not. Lord, there’s still so much left to do!”

  He rose agilely and pressed a stud that slid back the bookcase. A gleaming steel door with a combination lock. He worked it easily, not hurrying, not eager, gripped the double latch and
yanked down, pulling the door toward him. He stiffened, then, as he had done every night for the past month, half expecting the circulation fans to have stopped working somehow. But everything was all right. The scent of lilac engulfed him.

  “You know,” he said, “every time you say I love you, I have to think of Walter. He always loved you. Always. He was jealous as hell when we were married. Even now I think he dreams about you.” He laughed, almost a giggle. “I think that’s why he never married. And, you know, I just thought of something. If he ... if I can find out just how much he still loves you, maybe ... just maybe he’ll make a good prospect.”

  He fumbled for the light switch.

  “Lou, can you hear me?” He listened to the fans, smelled the lilac, felt the warmth. “Maybe Walter will be the key. It would be damned ironic, but maybe he can bring you back. God knows we’ve tried everything else.”

  He hesitated. Waiting.

  “I hope so,” Lou said. Lovingly. Sweetly. Softly. Intensely. “I’m getting tired of this room.”

  He wanted to weep for her courage. Instead, he braved a smile and turned on the light.

  “God, Louise, I love you!”

  The grey, the red, the black-and-yellow, the scarlet, the purple ... the mass of sludge on the floor rippled and stirred.

  “Oh, Ken,” it whispered, “turn off the light and love me.”

  WYNTOURS by David G. Rowlands

  David G. Rowlands first encountered the ghost stories of M.R. James during formative years at Eton College Choir School and has been a devotee ever since. Rowlands wrote his first ghost story at age 13 and sent it to August Derleth of Arkham House; as he did with so many fledgling writers, Derleth was kind enough to offer constructive criticisms. Born August 1, 1941, Rowlands, a biochemist by occupation, finds time to indulge his other interests: western films (he was associate editor of Wild West Stars), campanology (change-ringing on church bells), model railways, and, of course, ghost stories. Presently residing in Buckinghamshire, Rowlands’ books include Spliced Doubles (on campanology), The Tralee and Dingle Railway, The Dingle Train (with W. McGrath), and the booklet of supernatural stories from which the following is reprinted, Eye Hath Not Seen ...