Karl Wagner: The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

Disgusted with the increasingly morbid turns his mind was taking, he got to his feet and looked back the way he had come. In spite of the indications of activity suggested by the various, continuous mechanical noises, he had seen nobody since he had left the two men in the porta-cabin. Now his eye caught the movement of five long-shadowed shapes moving slowly toward him across an area strewn with household waste. The figures stooped from time to time to lift objects from the ground, and stood still, heads down, as though inspecting their finds. Then, they would either drop whatever they had discovered, or walk over to one of their number who was awkwardly hauling a little cart of some kind, and carefully place their discoveries inside it. Their movements were even-paced, and languid to the point of listlessness.

With the low sun behind them, it was impossible to make out details of their features. He thought that two of them, including the smallest, who was tugging the cart in some sort of harness, were female. He got the impression they were dressed rather quaintly. As they got nearer, he could hear their voices, quiet and even-toned, like people at prayer. Presumably, they were discussing the treasures they were finding. They gave no indication that they were aware Maurice was there until the tip of the hugely extended shadow of the most forward of them touched his feet. Then, that figure stopped, raised his right hand to his shoulder, and the others behind him ceased all movement, as though they had become unplugged from their energy source. The man at the front raised his hand even higher, with his index finger close to his brow, and tapped a battered cap lodged above his ear, in an antiquated gesture of respect.

Maurice, embarrassed and irritated by the subservient gesture, which he automatically assumed was one of mock humility, found himself lost for a suitable response. He said, “Hello there!” in the tone he would use to greet one of his colleagues, met by chance on the streets of Manchester.

“I wish you a good day,” said the man who had touched his cap, then, after the slightest pause, he added, “Sir.” His voice was strangely accented, but there was no note of mockery in his unassuming tone.

Maurice looked hard at him, trying to read his expression, but the man’s face was in shadow, and he was too far away. There was a similarity in the posture of the five people, and Maurice was sure that they were a family. They all had a similar shape and stance. The woman pulled the cart was older than the other female, and he guessed she was the wife of the man who had addressed him, who had the air of a paterfamilias. The other three appeared to be in their late teens.

Their stillness (they remained static as waxworks) and their dumb silence as he stared at them, quickly got on Maurice’s frazzled nerves.

They’re wondering what I’m doing here, he thought. I must appear very odd to them. It’s obvious why they’re here; they’re scavenging, but what the hell can they hope to find that’s worth taking away? Can people be so desperate, that they have to search in this foul place for the battered, useless things that others have thrown away?

And; yes, he thought, they do look that abject.

Tired of standing pointlessly in silence, Maurice decided to return to his car. He set off in a line wide of the right of the group who, to his surprise, began themselves to move. They went to their cart and began sorting through its contents.

“Sir,” called the man. “Would you be at all interested in anything we’ve got here? Come and see. We’ve a few choice articles.” He held some object up. “Look at this. This is for you, sir, don’t you think? This is something you should have.”

Maurice glanced across, and shook his head. He couldn’t make out what the man had in his hand, and, for some reason, he was glad of that. “I have to go,” he called, and quickened his stride.

“Give us a chance, sir,” the man pleaded, in his odd accent. “Just look what we’ve got here. You’ll curse yourself, if you don’t.”

“That he will,” called a female voice, in a kind of soft wailing drawl. “You’ll curse yourself later, sir.”

Maurice hurried on, almost at a run. They continued to call after him, but he couldn’t hear what they said. He looked back a couple of times. They seemed to be following him, but he was well ahead of them, and the distance was welcoming.

The porta-cabin was shut when he reached it. He looked at his watch. It was almost seven, hours later than he thought! Where had the time gone?

He didn’t look at the line of trees as he passed, but something in them called out its chattering, scolding cry.

He drove home along the empty back lanes slowly and furtively, glancing in his rear view mirror every few moments.

Maurice’s wife was a hypochondriac. In the three years of their marriage she had built up an impressive collection of pills and potions for all her ills, real and imagined. They filled two drawers of a medium-sized chest in the bathroom. She kept alphabetical lists of them, stating what each one was good for.

Next morning, after a troubled night, Maurice browsed through the lists, selected four bottles, and gulped down a possibly dangerous mix of medication. He checked his post (more confirmation from the bank of what he already knew; he was on the brink of bankruptcy) then went to see if he had been Faxed any better news. He found more of the same.

He sat for a while in the cold gray computer-dominated room he used as an office, listening to a CD of natural and electronic sounds his wife had bought him to help him relax after he had told her they were going broke. She had left him three weeks later.

The pills started to work, and he fell into a deep sleep. The door bell rang twice before he was even half awake.

He got to his feet too quickly. The room wobbled under him. His eyes wouldn’t focus, and his mouth tasted and felt like the inside of a carpet sweeper. The bell rang again. Whoever it was, was in a bloody hurry! He glanced at himself in a mirror as he passed along the hall, and hated what he saw.

The front door was a fancy affair with beaded glass panels, and lots of expensive brass fittings. He had seen one like it on a backdrop representing the Ugly Sisters’ house in a pantomime version of “Cinderella” at the Buxton Opera House. It represented the taste of the house’s previous occupant. What he liked about it was that you could get a good idea who was on your front step through the glass without being seen and, if expedient, could take evasive action. He was finding he had to do that more often recently.

This time however, his caller was standing well back, and was just a thin blur.

As soon as he opened the door a man stepped off the drive and held a card up in Maurice’s face. The card was a dirty, eggy yellow and bore a tiny photograph of someone who may have been the person holding it. It was creased in a hundred places, as though its owner had used it to practise Origami. Maurice didn’t even try to read what was printed on it.

“I’ve been unemployed,” the man on the step said, “and I’m trying to do myself a bit of good. Trying to help myself.” He had a pallid, pinched boy’s face, with small features and a gap between his eyes so wide it seemed to be an effort for him to see straight. His head kept drifting evasively round from side to side. He looked in need of a lot of square meals. He could have been any age between fifteen and fifty. He poked the card down into his shirt pocket and started to open a cheap, bulging plastic sports bag.

“No thanks,” said Maurice, “I never buy anything at the door.” He began to push the door shut.

“You never do?” echoed the man in a bewildered tone. “But I’m trying to keep myself, I’m not just sitting back. It’s to make a living.”