Karl Wagner - The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

“They became isolated.”

“That’s it. Formed their own little community. That got a name, too. They called it Devil’s Hole. Old Snape thinks, over the years, it got shortened to Dev’s Hole, then the locals forgot the original name, and it got twisted to Dove Holes, but I don’t know about that. Anyway, things went on without too much trouble, until some of the miner’s wives started having babies. The kids weren’t right at all, and the women tried to hide them. There was something unpleasant about them.”

“You don’t know what?”

The old man shook his head. “Snape wouldn’t say. But they were bad enough to force the miners and their families up onto Combs Moss, out of the way, where they couldn’t be seen. They built a little village of sorts, the one Mr. Snape found the remains of.” The old man took a step towards the door and pointed a grubby hand at the lines of rock that marked Black Edge and Hob Tor. “Just there, I think.”

“It seems they made a deal with the other villages hereabouts to keep out of their way, in exchange for food and other things they needed to survive. They used to send a few people down from the Moss with hand carts, to collect stuff. That went on for years, then those children I mentioned started to get loose, started roaming about the countryside. It seems they looked very strange. People didn’t like the look of them at all. And bad things happened.”

Once again, Maurice would have liked more details, but the old man was plainly unable to provide them, so he didn’t interrupt. The story, odd, even outlandish as it was, had the ring of truth, and was exacerbating a feeling of unease that had dominated Maurice’s mind and body since just before the accident, prior to his visit to the tip. He was still feeling wretchedly ill, and the medicine wasn’t working.

“Things got so bad,” the old man continued, “that one day, people for miles around got together, went up onto Combs Moss, and slaughtered everyone there, kids and all. They brought the bodies down and buried them in a pit they dug here, near the cave they’d found. They sealed off the cave and filled in the diggings that led to it.”

“And those were the people whose remains you’ve found?”

“So Mr. Snape says. If anyone knows about these things, it’s him. It seems right, as though there may be some truth in it, when you looked at some of those bones.”

Maurice glanced down at the blanketed bath tub, and imagined the peculiar things hidden there. “You should put them back,” he said. “I’ll help you. They should be reburied, right now, at once.” Suddenly, he was convinced that such action was urgent and necessary.

At first, perhaps from simple laziness, the old caretaker was reluctant to cooperate. He shook his head and made a woofing noise, as though he was being intolerably harassed. “Never mind that now—” he said, but Maurice decided to act.

He pushed his way deeper into the cabin and lifted the tub of bones up to his chest. He was a big man; the sort few people would chose to argue with, and the old man decided not to even try.

“Come with me,” Maurice ordered. “There’s a spade over there. Bring it with you. And show me where they found these bones.”

The old man trudged ahead, slithering from time to time, as did Maurice, on the mud under the dried earth crust. He stopped at a spot quite undistinguished by any obvious mark, apparently at random, and pointed down at the ground. “Here,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Maurice asked, suspiciously.

The old man nodded emphatically, and repeated, “Here, or hereabouts.”

Maurice took the spade and began to dig. It was hard work. He had to cut through a mesh of impacted household waste that lay deep under the thick, heavy mud. He was sweating in streams, probably from fever as much as from his exertions. He paused from time to time to wipe his brow, and noticed small groups of people standing immobile in the distance. They seemed to be observing him, though he could not be sure.

“Are those men who work with you?” he asked his companion.

The old man glanced around, obviously not liking what he saw. “No, that’s them,” he said. “The scavengers.”

“And who are they?” Maurice asked, as he resumed digging.

After a while, after quite a long pause, the old man said, “I think you know as well as I bloody do,” and shuffled off toward the cabin. Maurice did not try to stop him.

When he had dug a shapeless hole about three feet deep, and about twice the volume of the tin bath, he poured the bones carefully into it, and spread the blanket over them. He shoveled the mix of garbage and earth back on top of them quickly.

When he had finished, he slung the shovel over his shoulder and traipsed back toward the cabin. The groups of people appeared to have moved nearer, but were still not close enough to be seen clearly. Their faces were pale, featureless blobs. Some of them, he noticed, had very long arms and legs, but tiny bodies. The harder he stared, the stranger some of them became.

He thought he must be hallucinating; his fever was raging; he needed more medication.

His foot struck something. It looked like ivory, but was probably yellow plastic bleached by the sun. Curious, he bent and tried to pick it up. It would not move. He dug his fingers down around its curved surface and pulled hard. It moved up slightly, and he realised he was holding a bone. It looked very much like a human femur! He straightened up and twisted round, studying the surface of the ground about him intensely. Here and there other whitish lumps protruded. He stalked over to the nearest and gave it a prod with his shoe. It was another bone. He quickly identified half a dozen more, within a ten-yard circle of the first he had found. Some of the bones were… unusual.

A feeling of despair washed over him. He was convinced there were hundreds more of them, scattered out there in the tip. For a reason he could not isolate or understand, the knowledge appalled him. He panicked.

He left the spade on the ground and ran to the porta-cabin. The door and the window were both shut. The door was locked. Maurice was convinced the old man was in there; had deliberately shut himself in. He banged the door with his fist like a fool, and shouted. When he tired of this he trudged bleakly back to his car.

Before leaving, he took one last look round at the tip. There was nobody there. The scavengers had gone.

He wondered where.

He was having a bad night.

He had gone to bed early, at nine thirty, after taking a cocktail of his wife’s pills and potions, washed down with a beaker of whiskey. He had slept like a dead thing for about an hour, then had jerked awake as though someone in the room had shouted. Perhaps he had shouted. His dreams had been that bad.

Once awake, he felt terribly disappointed. He had expected to be knocked out well into the next day, but was aware his mind would permit him no more rest. He longed for sleep. He was stuck instead with a nervous, infuriating wakefulness.

He pitied himself. He felt like a tiny child locked in a cold, dark place as a punishment for something he had not done. He was alone there. He was alone in the world.

His loneliness was something he had been trying to avoid, to bury away deep in his mind. He had been partially successful in doing this, but the knowledge of his solitariness, of his lack of friends, and now, of even a wife, had festered there. Now, under pressure of the strange events of the day, and of his sickness, his isolation had burst out, and bloomed in his brain like a huge and hideous flower.

He needed to talk to someone, needed sympathy, and help of some kind.

But he had no one to turn to, no real friends. Previously, all his social life had involved his business associates. He had been closest to the other partners in the company they had created together, but they were the last people he wanted to talk to now. He had no children, his parents and other relatives were dead or estranged, and he had never joined things. He didn’t play golf, perform in amateur theatricals, or belong to the Rotarians like Neville bloody Gale.