Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

His anger was beginning to dissipate, replaced by a modicum of pity. It seemed like Fisk was existing in his own self-induced hell. Tormenting himself. The guilt must have tipped his mind. That or the booze.

“If I carry on drinking, I know I’ll die. I’ve already seen signs. Liver’s knackered. Be a blessing when it comes.” He motioned with his hand. “Benny from over the way brought me a couple of bottles of absinthe back from his last trip. That’s good stuff, let me tell you. Good stuff.”

“Why do you keep these?” Cowan tapped the side of one of the cardboard boxes. “You should let it go. You’re just torturing yourself.”

Fisk shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? He brings them.”

“You think Alex brought this stuff?”

“Uh-huh. He leaves me … little gifts. From the other side.”

Cowan felt the skin on the back of his neck prickling. He lifted a soft toy out of the box. It was a cloth mouse wearing a gingham shirt— something from Bagpuss? Cowan’s memory faltered. It looked old. Some of the stitching had come loose. One of its eyes looked wonky. As he held the object, a foul stench seemed to emanate from it. An intense feeling of revulsion struck. He tossed the toy back into the box, almost recoiling.

Little gifts. Cowan knew enough to understand the correct word even if Fisk didn’t— apports . Fisk believed the toys were reminders from his dead son. Reminders of what damage he’d done. He had clearly lost his mind. The self-harming was just another symptom of the madness. Cowan supposed guilt could do that.

Fisk was speaking. “Remember that film with Bruce Willis’s wife and the crazy black woman? And him — Lundgren?”

“Swayze.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Well that’s what it’s like. Twenty-four hours a day. He’s there taunting me, trying to hurt me. Reminding me that he’s angry. At night he sometimes burns my skin.” He rested his head back on the sofa. “And he set fire to my hair once. But it’s no more than I deserve.” His voice seemed stronger now, less slurred. Maybe he was sobering up.

Cowan became aware of the gun’s weight again. He looked around the squalor, considering Fisk’s situation. His physical condition was pathetic. Dishevelled. The mementoes, the cans of booze, the state of his mind. Ending Fisk’s life would be doing him a favour, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Why not kill yourself then? Proper this time though.”

Fisk blinked slowly. “You a religious man?”

Cowan shook his head.

“Neither was I before all this shit.” He swallowed. “But in hospital I was encouraged to find God. So I’m hedging my bets — this might be His test. I need to endure my punishment. Anything else would be to face eternal damnation. And — like I said — my liver’s on its way out anyway.”

Cowan shook his head. “You sick fuck. You committed a wicked act. For that you’ll rot in hell when your time comes.” He fought to keep his composure. “You ruined Rose’s life — and mine. And you took poor Alex. But the judge was right — you’re fucked up in the head. That’s no excuse for what you did, but I think you’re suffering in your own hell.”

He shook his head and left the flat, slamming the door behind him. Almost instantly the crying kid started up again. It really did sound like it was coming from inside Fisk’s flat. The music recommenced straight away.

Cowan made his way back to the lift. Turning back, he glanced into the throat of the corridor. An indistinct shape loitered in the shadows. The singsong tone of a nursery rhyme echoed along the passage, followed by the sound of children’s laughter.

“Hello?” Cowan’s voice was taut. “Who’s there?”

The laughter rang again, this time with a malevolent edge. Brittle.

Cowan turned back to the lift. He flared his nostrils at the panel and shouldered open the door to the stairs. The air was cool. He began his descent. Raindrops on the windows warped his view. Someone was kicking a football in the stairwell far below. A child’s echoing voice recited “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” The noise felt like it was swirling around him. Monochrome colours of the décor matched his headache. He was gasping by the time he reached the ground floor, bursting from the foyer into the quadrangle. It had stopped raining.

He strode back to his car, feeling uncomfortably warm beneath his coat. Shafts of sunlight were fighting to break through the clouds. He uttered silent apologies to Rose as he crossed the playground, reminding himself that Fisk’s suffering justified the broken promise. It made him feel no better.

As he drew near to the car, he clicked his remote control. The alarm squealed its short burst and unlocked the doors. He was desperate to get back to Sheffield. He was tired of this world of graffiti and decay, of litter and filth. He took off his coat and tossed it into the back. The key slid into the ignition and he turned it, firing the engine. And it was just as he was reaching over to fasten his seatbelt that he spotted the toy mouse on the dashboard.

He picked it up carefully and studied it. The faded gingham, the worn seams, the wonky eye — all identical to the one in Fisk’s flat.

Cowan clicked the seatbelt in and released the handbrake.

He stopped in a lay-by several miles outside Leeds. A stone bridge spanned the road, under which flowed a deep waterway identified by a wooden sign as the River Aire. Cowan paused for a moment and peered at the brown water as it flowed languidly beneath. The road was deserted. He removed the plastic bag from his pocket and paused for a second before dropping it over the side. The splash was deep and satisfying. For several minutes, he watched the ripples until they died away and the surface returned to its flat, constant motion. Then he walked back to the car.

1893

They have taken me to Emily Ruggles’s house to die.

I had hoped to die in my little apartment in the city, but Emily’s house is very pleasant, and will serve as well, I suppose. The March sunlight illuminates my room in the morning, and Emily is kind enough to sit up with me at night. The nights are hardest. The follies and illusions of childhood re-assert themselves at night, and it is reassuring to see a human face when you open your eyes in the gloom, in an unfamiliar house, thinking that perhaps you are already dead. Last night — was it last night? — I woke from a dream of Hydesville and Emily looked like Kate, bending to her needlework by the light of a guttering taper. For a moment, we were girls, all undone between us. Kate, I cried, Kate — then Emily took my hand and became just plain Emily once more. So I remembered that Kate was dead and had to mourn her all over again. The mind is a funny thing, playing tricks like that.