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

He knew he ought to call his sister but was still unready to do so. No doubt she would call back.

She did, almost an hour later. This time he picked up the receiver.

“Hello, you’re there at last then,” Barbara said, then seemed to whisper something that he didn’t catch.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“No Franz, it doesn’t matter.”

“I went round to Murdock’s place yesterday. He wasn’t there. No sign of him. Did you know he has a dog though? That was a surprise. He’s never seemed to me to be a pet loving sort of person.”

“No, he’s never mentioned a dog to me. What kind of dog?”

Franz realised he had no idea. The boy had run away with the creature so quickly he’d not been able to get a look at it. He explained as much to his sister who did not sound particularly interested.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’ll be able to ask him about it. He’s back now.”

“What!”

“Yes, it was all a misunderstanding. He’s been ill and he didn’t want to tell us for some reason, so he slipped away.”

“Slipped away?”

“And he’s done it again now. He’s coming to see you. He should be there in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes.”

“That’s correct. Stop repeating what I say please.”

“But why would he want to come here. Did you give him my address? He’s never been here before.”

“No, I didn’t need to. He must know it. Anyway, he’s heading in your direction now. He left as soon as you answered the phone and I told him you were in.”

“But Barbara, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why on earth not?”

“I don’t want to see him. I particularly don’t. The bastard. What does he want with me?”

“Franz, it’s not like you to talk of anybody like that. He said he just wants to thank you.”

“For what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. For caring enough to take the trouble to call on him?”

“Did you tell him I’d done that?”

“Not that I can remember, no. I didn’t know you had.”

“He was supposed to be ill wasn’t he?”

“Perhaps he was too ill to answer the door.”

“No he bloody wasn’t.”

“Franz, what’s got into you? You’re not normally like this.”

Realising he had to end the conversation to prepare for Murdock’s visit, Franz gruffly apologised, said he’d probably call her back later, and put down the phone. He went round his house checking all the doors and windows were shut and pulled all the curtains on the ground floor. Then he went up to his bedroom to watch and wait.

He waited in the darkest part of his bedroom and kept watch on the street in front of his house. After about ten minutes a small unmarked white van drew up against the opposite pavement. The driver turned off the engine but didn’t get out immediately, confirming, somehow, Franz’s guess that Murdock was the occupant of the vehicle. This proved correct when the door suddenly swung open some time later and Murdock’s huge bulk clambered into view. He was dressed in some kind of duffle coat with a hood concealing his face but Franz recognized the shuffling glide of his feet as he went round to the back of the van and opened the rear door. The dog ran out.

It doesn’t look too happy, Franz thought. It had its tail between its legs and slunk along with its belly almost touching the ground. Murdock closed the back of the van and crossed the street towards Franz’s house with the dog following close behind.

Franz moved backward a couple of steps, fearing he might be visible from the street. Murdock moved up to his front door and Franz expected him to knock or ring the bell but it didn’t happen.

Guessing that Murdock was reconnoitering his house Franz waited to see what move his visitor would make next. After a long silence he heard his letter box squeak. Then Murdock appeared in his little front garden again, pursued by the dog. As he got to the point where the garden ended and the street began he stopped, turned, looked up to where Franz had concealed himself, and raised an arm in some sort of salute. At the same time the hood fell back and Franz saw that he was smiling broadly, almost laughing. He turned, crossed the street, let the dog in the back of the van, got in himself and drove away.

After waiting a few minutes in the dark Franz ventured out of his bedroom and went downstairs without turning on any lights. He saw that a folded piece of paper had been posted through his letterbox. There was enough light from the street lamp outside his house for him to see, when he unfolded the paper, that there was nothing written on it at all. But he got the message.

He spent the next half hour going round his house with a little torch and filling his rucksack with essentials for travel. He made sure he had his passport, credit cards in his wallet, and some folding money.

Then, after checking to make sure there was no sign of the white van anywhere nearby, he ran out to his car and drove swiftly away. After parking in the airport lot he checked the departures board then walked up to the Scandinavian Airlines stand and bought a one way ticket. He wasn’t sure how long he was going to be away but it was definitely time he took a break. He’d decided he had a lot to get away from.

Next morning, at about eleven o’clock as usual, Murdock lumbered into Jerry’s room without knocking, with a selection of daily newspapers under his arm. He lit a cigar, sat down close to Jerry’s wheelchair, and spread the papers on the table in front of him.

“Anything especially grim today?” Jerry asked, genuinely expectant of some entertaining bad news.

Murdock made a play of searching through the sheets of paper as he said, “Well, not much actually, it’s been a good day for the world, all things considered, but I did spot one small item of interest. Now let me see… ah, here we have it.” He held up a page of newspaper and said, “It seems a 747 came off the runway in Oslo last night and hit a luggage vehicle.”

“Much harm done?”

“A few people hurt in the ensuing fire but only one fatality.”

“Oh. Hardly worth mentioning, then.”

“It says here that the dead man was believed to carry an English passport but the body was too badly burned to be identified. Next of kin have yet to be informed.”

“They’ll soon sort that out,” Jerry said, without much interest.

Murdock, who seemed to be very pleased about something, perhaps just himself, said, “I expect they already have done.”

Downstairs, sounding faintly mournful and further away than it actually was, a phone began to ring.

“How’d it start ?” Mom asks, taking a step back toward the curb. Her long-fingered hands have curled up at her sides like smacked daddy longlegs, and her braid has come loose and swings back and forth, gray and heavy, across her back. “How’d it start? How do I know?”

She tears her eyes away from the little triplex, just for a moment, and looks at me. I flinch, start to take her hand, but I’m afraid to. For so many years, after we left here, I’d see that expression bubble up, triggered by nothing: a bus sighing on a nearby streetcorner, or the sight of a tent- sukka billowing off the side of someone’s porch, or a flying beetle landing on her hand, or a summer wind. Then she’d start screaming at me, or whoever was near. Even then, I knew it wasn’t really me, and that did help, some.