Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

“New coat?” Greg’s fingers stroked her collar.

“Keep your paws off.”

“Watch it. Pippa will think we’re paying you too much.”

Greg was clumsy where Pippa’s angling had been more oblique. Martha had chosen to ignore her jibes and hints, having stuck to the deal made when they were all green and keen. She’d not allow Greg to change the terms.

“You’re not and I’m worth every penny.”

Worth a better time slot and channel. Worth another series.

“How many personal clients do you have now? How much for your last tour?”

A lot. The world was ripe. She’d weighed it in her palm.

“None of your business.”

Martha was brisk. Even with her clients she was sharp. She’d not pander to their fantasies that mediums were soft and ethereal.

“Take care. We built you up and we can pull you down.”

Her laughter echoed around the empty cellar. Pip turned and stared at them.

“You won’t. You can’t.”

To reveal Martha as a fraud was to expose them all. The true believers would be incensed. Most viewers though were sceptics, they would already suspect, but the fun lay in the possibility of doubt. The chance that Martha might be real. So, not perjury, not a lie to shatter worlds, but was it one to shatter careers?

“We can find someone new. You’d be easy to replace.”

“Don’t threaten me. I’ll send you all to hell.”

“Keep it down,” Pippa stalked over. “Do you want everyone to hear? We’ll talk about this later. Do you understand, Martha? There are things to be addressed. Now get ready, it’s time to start the show.”

Martha had learnt from watching Iris and Suki. Both had reigned at Lamp Street, lumpish in their muddy coloured cardigans, giving readings to anyone who called. Muttering thanks to spirit guides. Turning tatty Tarot cards.

Martha had no claim to special gifts. She learnt to read the hands and face, the gestures that betrayed need and greed. The skill of deciphering a tic, interpreting a pause. Martha studied hard and learnt how to put on a show.

“Yes, David. Thanks.”

Made-up-David helped Martha to the other side. A fictional spirit guide to help usher in an imaginary spectral presence or fake demonic possession. David was a friar. Shaman. Priest. Rabbi. Denomination was irrelevant. People seemed to find religious men more comforting in the afterlife than in the flesh. David was based on an engraving that Iris kept by her bed. A monk with his hands folded in prayer.

“What do you make of it?” Pippa asked, now in character.

“It’s a big place.” Martha sniffed. “It smells bad. Like something’s rotted down here.”

The low ceiling pressed down on them, while the walls stretched out into shadow. Martha rubbed her temples, where pain had started to gather. She walked to the opposite wall, as if in search of something. It was her trick. The camera was forced to follow and the others had to orbit her to stay in shot.

“Brother David, help me.” Martha gained momentum. She covered her ears with flat hands. “Make them stop. They’re deafening me.”

“What is it?”

“Clanging. Fit to wake the dead. The sound of banging metal.” She winced as if uncomfortable. Tonight had to be special. She had a point to prove. “It’s claustrophobic. Too many souls in too small a space. A strong sense of punishment.”

Pippa made a display of her excitement, trying to reclaim screen time for her and Greg. “Greg, can you tell us more?”

“It’s a fascinating place. A gruesome history. It was a prison in the eighteenth century.”

His eyes shone in the viewfinder.

“What about the clanging?” Pippa asked. More professional than Greg, she’d not prove a point at the show’s expense.

“An inmate, Samuel Greenwood, was questioned by the prison board. One of them, shocked, recorded the interview in his diary. The main gates were locked but down here the doors were all open. New arrivals were greeted by the banging of the cell doors.” He mimed a man clutching bars and rattling them. “An unholy din by all accounts.”

Martha took off her gloves and trailed her fingers along the crumbling mortar of the wall, talking continually to David as she went. Her eyes closed in concentration. The camera loved the gesture.

“Of course. I see it now.” She stopped and the spotlight overshot her. “There’s so much misery here. Pain. Searing. Physical.”

The cameraman tripped up on an empty crate. The world was upended as an explosion of panicked feathers went off in his face. Too stunned to scream, Pippa did it for him. The bird, in its eagerness to escape incarceration in the upturned crate, sprang up and hit the ceiling. It landed with a dull thud upon the floor. It jerked and flapped, a reflex of the fleshly dead, until finally it came to rest. Martha knelt and picked it up. It was a scrawny thing, its feet deformed, head lolling on its broken neck.

Pippa had stopped screaming, looking over Martha’s shoulder.

“I wonder how it got down here. And how long ago.”

Martha laid the carcass back on the crate. She shook her head in disbelief. Sickened by this small, crushed life, her headache was suddenly much worse. She’d never experienced a full-blown migraine but recognised the signs. Lights danced at the periphery of her vision. Strange patterns hovered in the air. It interfered with coherent thought. She tried to reassert herself.

“This is no ordinary prison, is it, Greg? All these voices cry out but no-one comes. No-one keeps the peace.”

“Samuel Greenwood said the inmates ran the place. The authorities didn’t get in their way.”

Martha tasted bile rising in her throat. I’ll not be sick. I’ll not be sick. Not a mantra but a command. She’d last vomited in childhood. Its associations were too painful to encounter. Not like this. Not here. Martha fought it back.

“There’s uncontrolled rage within these walls. Frenzy. Violation.” She turned on Greg as if he were to blame. “Men, women, children, all mixed in together.”

“Yes,” Greg’s voice was serious and low. “Murderers and thieves,” he savoured the words, “cheats and fraudsters.”

Martha wasn’t listening. The lingering odour of decay she’d noted was getting worse. It was rotting flowers, fungi and burnt sugar. The pain in her head was punctuated by explosions. Monstrous white blooms contracted and expanded before her eyes. She clutched the wall with one hand, bent double, and threw her stomach contents upon the floor.

The sensation of muscles moving in her throat, of acid burning in her nose, evoked the shock and grief of that distant summer her father died. Passed over was the term they used at home. Martha despised this euphemism, even though it was part of her work’s vocabulary. Not long after her father’s sudden death, she had been burnt up by a fever. She’d vomited without relief. She had the same sensations now as then, like she’d died and was floating out of reach.

“Where’s Daddy?” Hot and hallucinating, Martha was emphatic. She wanted her father, not her mother’s comforts.

“Daddy’s here,” Iris replied. “He’s in the room. He’s telling you he loves you. Can’t you hear?”

“No,” Martha whimpered. Had there been a time when the world was full of voices? She couldn’t recall.

“Oh, my sweetheart,” and under her breath, Iris spoke the damaging, damning words that separated Martha from her tribe, “you used to be like us. You used to see but now you’re blind.”

So Martha was left in darkness, Iris and Suki in the light.

Martha dabbed her mouth, vomit dripping on her coat. Greg motioned for the filming to continue. Pippa ladled on concern.