Karl Wagner: The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

The eggs looked more and more appetizing the longer he studied them. If they taste anything like as good as they smell, he thought, they would be delicious. He picked up a handful and, with great difficulty, resisted trying to eat one.

He put five of them in the inside pocket of his torn and filthy jacket, and scrambled into one of the passages leading out.

They all pointed upward.

Presumably, if he kept going, sooner or later, he would reach the surface!

He thought he was going to die down there.

The tunnels looped and twisted off in all directions. There were places where they forked and, when they did, he always chose the path that had the steepest gradient upward. It didn’t seem to matter as, round the first bend, he frequently found himself almost falling along a stretch that took him diagonally down again. The illumination in the passages was always up ahead; somehow he could never discover its source. He was always blundering on toward the light.

From time to time he stopped to doze, then started awake and continued on. His mind was empty; his brain felt as raw as his hands. He was bleeding from dozens of small wounds. He was drenched in the sweat of fever.

When he saw a clear, whiter light ahead, he stopped because it was hurting his eyes. He lay with his chin on the ground while his sight adjusted, and the awareness that what he was looking at might be daylight gradually dawned upon him.

Strangely, he felt no elation. He felt resentment.

About bloody time, he thought.

He hesitated before completing the last stretch, unaccountably reluctant to get to the surface, now that he was almost there. Something about the quality of light caused him some trepidation; it was eerie, and not quite right.

It was like moonlight, but far too bright.

The world he emerged into was well-lit, but there was no sun shining. There was no moon, either. Above him stretched an empty, cold, silvery sky.

The topography of the landscape around him was recognizable, but was stripped of its familiar features. The shapes of Combs Moss loomed unmistakably ahead of him, but the walls and fields along its sides were gone. What remained looked like a hill of lead. Everywhere, as far as he could see, the land was smoothed off into planes of gray that gave an impression of impenetrable solidity.

When he saw the dark line of trees and the porta-cabin where he had expected them to be, he felt a surge of wild hope.

The huge black van was parked between them! Its back was open. It was parked at an angle to his line of vision, so he could only see a little way inside it. He could see nothing there but shadows.

He started to run toward the van. He hurt in every limb, and stumbled like a drunk with a wooden leg, but he had discovered a resource of determination and energy at the sight of the van. It seemed to represent his last, best hope.

When he was about fifty yards from the vehicle a figure jumped to the ground out of the back and disappeared round the side farmost from him. Maurice shouted wordlessly and made frantic efforts to run faster. He thought he heard a door slam. An engine started. The back of the van started to close automatically; a black door descended smoothly, slowly, and silently.

Maurice tried to scream. He was crying, and waving and flapping both his arms to get attention. His feet were getting heavier every step he took.

The van jerked once, then moved away. It accelerated. Maurice continued trying to run to catch it, but gave up when the vehicle vanished over the crest of the hill.

Finally exhausted, he fell to his knees.

He was facing the line of trees. They were almost leafless now, and he could see, perched on the branches, some of the things that he had not seen clearly before. They were busy at some task, flittering about individually and in groups.

Perhaps they had seen him. One of them called out what could have been a chattering, imbecilic greeting.

A number of them ventured forward out of the trees. Moving in fits and starts, they came towards him, spreading out as they did so.

The closer they got, the worse they looked.

Maurice knew he could not move another step. Resigned, he sat and waited for them.

Remembering he was hungry, he pulled one of the eggs from his pocket and put it in his mouth. Keeping his gaze steadily on the creatures, who were almost upon him, he bit down hard on the egg.

Later.

He was lying down, so he stood up.

He opened his eyes, and found he could see in all directions at once.

But he could not see directly up or down.

He tried to touch himself, to find out what he was, but he had lost the use of his arms, if he still had any.

He was hungry, but there was nothing anywhere that looked like food. Then he realized he had no mouth.

He stretched his many legs experimentally. He discovered he could move easily across the crusted surface of the earth, with almost no effort.

He made a clattering sound by rattling parts of the top of his body.

He waited.

Then, feeling deeply anxious, he scuttled towards the line of trees to join the others of his kind.

At least, he thought, I shan’t be alone.

But, when he reached the trees, he realized they had been dead for a long time.

The place was deserted.

The Ripper’s Tune by Gregory Nicoll. Copyright © 1993 by Gregory Nicoll for Kinesis, March 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

One Size Eats All by T.E.D. Klein. Copyright © 1993 by T.E.D. Klein for Outside Kids, Summer 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Resurrection by Adam Meyer. Copyright © 1993 by Adam Meyer for Not One of Us #10. Reprinted by permission of the author.

I Live to Wash Her by Joey Froehlich. Copyright © 1993 by Joey Froehlich for Space and Time, Spring 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

A Little-Known Side of Elvis (published originally as The Dog Park) by Dennis Etchison. Copyright © 1993 by Dennis Etchison for Dark Voices 5. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Perfect Days by Chet Williamson. Copyright © 1993 by Chet Williamson for After the Darkness. Reprinted by permission of the author.

See How They Run (published originally as For You to Judge) by Ramsey Campbell. Copyright © 1993 by Waking Nightmares Ltd. for Monsters in Our Midst. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Shots Downed, Officer Fired by Wayne Allen Sallee. Copyright © 1993 by Wayne Allen Sallee for Vicious Circle, Fall 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

David by Sean Doolittle. Copyright © 1993 by Sean Doolittle for Deathrealm #19. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Portrait of a Pulp Writer by F.A. McMahan. Copyright © 1993 by F.A. McMahan for ComputorEdge, April 16, 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Fish Harbor by Paul Pinn. Copyright © 1993 by Paul Pinn for Xenos #17. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Ridi Bobo by Robert Devereaux, Copyright © 1993 by Robert Devereaux for Weird Tales, Spring 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Adroitly Wrapped by Mark McLaughlin. Copyright © 1993 by Mark McLaughlin for Gaslight, August 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Thicker Than Water by Joel Lane. Copyright © 1993 by Joel Lane for Panurge 18. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Memento Mori by Scott Thomas. Copyright © 1993 by Scott Thomas for Haunts, Spring 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Blitz Spirit by Kim Newman. Copyright © 1993 by Kim Newman for The Time Out Book of London Short Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.