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

“Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry. It’s the smell.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it? Maybe there’s a dead bird or rat that’s rotting.” Then, because Martha’s pallor couldn’t be feigned, “Do you want us to stop?”

Martha clutched a crumpled tissue to her mouth to stem the swelling tide. She recognised the smell now. It was death. Bedridden Iris, nursed by her girls in the front parlour, had been rank with it. Devoured by a cancer in her breast that had ulcerated and wept pus throughout her long slide towards a terrible demise.

People still came, even at the end. To see her. Just for a minute. Just to ask advice. Women whose daughters followed Suki and Martha home from school. Hair pullers, name callers, shin kickers who loved to plague the pair of witches. These same mothers would sit and wait, watching the girls no older than their own, move around the unclean kitchen, washing their mother’s soiled sheet in the sink. Not a single one offered aid.

Suki started reading to give Iris peace. So this wall-eyed girl who was clumsy at PE and hated school inherited her mother’s mantle and the regulars. She stayed at home and read the cards, while Martha passed her exams and got into fights with anyone who looked at her askew.

“I’m dying, a little more each day. There’s no need to be afraid.” Iris had beckoned Martha over. “They’re waiting for me on the other side. Suki will be just fine. She has the gift but what will become of you, Martha? What will you do?”

Yes, Martha was familiar with the smell. It was enough to make her turn and vomit once again before the floor rose up to meet her. She felt her bones crunch with the impact.

“Martha, can you hear me?”

She was shaken back to consciousness by rough, frightened hands. The pain had gone and left her empty headed, her brain replaced by cotton wool, her mouth with acid and sand.

“Thank God. What happened?” Greg motioned for the crew to stand back and give her air. She tried to sit.

“Just a faint.”

In the seconds she was away the cellar had reassembled itself. She could see anew. The investigators were still there. The bare bulbs still shed their light but there was a whole world superimposed upon their own. A past that occupied the present, which shared their time and space. Figures moved around them, weak imprints on here and now. She had peeled back the skin of the world and was looking underneath. When one of these shadow prisoners walked through Martha, she shuddered. It felt like cobwebs were being brushed against her skin.

“There’s a lot of residual energy here.” The stock phrase had been given shape. Martha wanted to cry. Something locked away was liberated. Was this how Iris saw the world? She realised it has been six years since she last spoke with Suki. How much they had to share. “This place was a health hazard. They’re all filthy.”

Ragged figures milled around or else they squatted in huddles. Food was piled in troughs as though for swine. There was a gentle buzz. They were too afraid to speak up.

A group of convicts emerged from the far end of the prison, the overlords of this peculiar hell. These self tattooed, beribboned demons strutted with such swagger that Martha quailed with fear. They singled out a shadow-boy for sport. They hauled him up and took their time at play. One swung his knife about and it passed through Martha’s chest, making her gasp, even though it was only a projection of things past. Another one unfolded his razor and the boy’s face was devastated. The crime he suffered for most was his prettiness.

“Martha, what is it?”

“A gang ran this place.” She found her voice. She talked too loudly so she could hear herself above the shrieks and jeers.

“They kept the peace,” Greg said.

“Not peace. I wouldn’t call it that.”

Martha struggled to her feet. She tipped and tilted until the horizon righted.

“Jimmy Bailey, Michael O’Connor, Kit Williams, Simeon Weaver…” Martha repeated the names as they were shouted at roll call.

“I don’t have it here but there is a ledger…” Greg fumbled with his notes.

“Check if you want. They’ll all be there.”

Greg twitched. This was unexpected. She had raised the stakes. He hadn’t thought she’d do her own research.

“Emma Parker,” Martha’s eyes were horrified. Emma lay on the floor. Slit from pubic bone to ribcage, her blood sprayed upon the walls. “They were animals. When she fell pregnant they opened her up with a knife. They cut out her womb and watched her bleed to death.”

Greg frowned at her nasty embellishments. After all, this was a family show.

“The smell. It’s death.”

She walked back towards the twisted stairs. She had been shocked but now she was afraid. Something was missing from this nether, neither world. Someone was missing.

“There’s something about this spot.” She strained to listen to the henchman who stood beside the steps like a lackey at some royal court making proclamations. “Thomas the Knife, that’s his name.”

It sparked of recognition. The name in Greg’s notes was Thomas Filcher. Where was he?

“Close. Thomas the Blade.” Greg was glad of her return to the script. “He sat waiting for new inmates to be brought down. Tapping on his boot heel with a knife.”

Martha pushed her fists against her eyes. Where was the architect of this regime? Why could she not see him?

The clearing of a throat. It was a quiet sound.

“Did you hear that?” Pip piped up. “Who’s there? We mean no harm. Give us a sign.”

It came again. This time between a chuckle and a growl.

“Did you hear it?”

Greg was normally subtle in the projections of his voice, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

Cold trickled down Martha’s spine. What did it mean that the others could hear him too? There came a laugh, cruel and amused. Martha held up a hand to silence Pip. “Come out. Show yourself. Or else leave us well alone.”

He rose to her challenge, stepping from shadow into light. Thomas the Knife stood before her, denser than the other shades. There was enough of him to trip a movement sensor. It called out in alarm.

“What is it?” Pippa hissed.

They can hear him, Martha thought, but they can’t see him.

“Everyone, step back towards the stairs.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” Martha could smell her own stale vomit and fear. “This isn’t residual energy. It’s active. He’s here.”

The crew started to retreat but Pip hovered by her side. She’d not be upstaged.

“Martha, tell us what you see.”

“He’s tall. Handsome.” Thomas smirked at that. “Well dressed and fed compared to the rest. A dandy in a blood splattered shirt.”

He was a gentleman butcher, linen stained by the evidence of his industry. Long hair tied back and boots up to his thighs. Even dead, he bristled with an energy Martha rarely saw in men. She watched him like he was a predator. Magnificent and unpredictable. Her eyes were fixed on him in retreat. She clasped Pippa’s elbow but the presenter shook her off.

“He’s King down here. He thrived. He sniffed out the proudest and the most delicate. Broke their spirit as if it were a game.” Martha looked up, a line of girls crucified upon the bars, their modesty and disfigurements on display. “He’s full of hate and it’s women that he hates the most.”

Martha knew the cleansing rituals, protective circles and holy chants. Iris had been most insistent that they learn, even if Martha wasn’t blessed with special sight. Arrogant and adamant in her disbelief, she’d come down here totally unarmed.

“We have to get out now.”

Too late. Too late. Thomas the Knife wanted company. His boots fell heavily on stone. Surprisingly loud, considering he was a ghost.