Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

“But it wasn’t until I incorporated the oil spill from one of my failed novellas that the piece really clicked, and the echoes of past and present began to clearly assert themselves.

“It’s a story of loss and despair — the perfect combination for an easy summer holiday on the beach.”

I WALK THE SHORELINE as I did ten years ago but everything has changed. The intervening decade has not been long enough for wounds to heal; everywhere I look I see the scars of what’s been done. It all looks dead, covered in a thin viscous layer of regret.

The name is infamous even now. The oil tanker Madison , one thousand feet long and one-sixth that wide, ran ashore on the reef not twelve miles from where I stand, and the sharp coral sliced through its two hulls as though they were made of paper. From that long gash flowed the darkest, most vile blood into McCarthy Sound, and it spread faster than any estimate could predict. It raced towards the shore, hungry for life to feed on, and it took all birds and fishes and animals in its way until their deaths numbered into the thousands. Everything it touched withered and died, and then it took the life of Port McCarthy, the once peaceful town that could do nothing but watch itself succumb.

Suzanne and I had been there only a few months earlier, when everything seemed as though it would remain beautiful forever. It was still early June, when the days stretch their longest and we had nothing but warm weather to look forward to. We had by then only been together a short while, yet like the summer I could only see happiness laid before us, mapped out across the white sands of the beach. It’s strange now to remember; the accident was so close, and in hindsight I can see the ripples it sent backwards through time, yet I was too ignorant to recognise them for what they were. Portents of change, and what they promised has haunted me every day since.

We had driven half a day to reach the small town, sent on the recommendation of a close friend. Suzanne wore a straw hat, and through its wide woven brim a checkerboard of light dappled her soft face and filled her eyes with something akin to a sparkle every time she looked at me. Her laugh made me in turn laugh, and I still recall the sight of her newly shaven legs rubbing against one another and the feeling of absolute happiness it brought me. Were I somehow able to have frozen that moment, I would gladly have spent my remaining life there, wrapped in that beatific feeling of joy. That is the worst of the hauntings: the reminders of what I shall never again have.

The Port McCarthy that lies before me now is overcast, and I must work to remember that this is due to the shorter late autumn days and not that the oil has stained the sky.

I check myself into the Windhaven Inn, the same place where Suzanne and I stayed those many years ago. I must admit I’m surprised it’s still there and doing business, but one step inside shows me that it has hung on only by the thinnest of threads. The smiling woman who greeted us a decade ago is nowhere to be seen. Instead, in her place, a girl no more than sixteen, her faded black clothes stretched over her thick body, coils of seeping tattoos wrapped around her arms. I notice her pierced tongue as she speaks to me, and the words leave me feeling cold and wet.

“I’ve a reservation,” I tell her. “For the weekend.”

“Sign here,” she says, and I see her chipped nails are painted a matching dull black as she points to an empty space in the smudged guest book. I take the pen and try to sign my name, but after more than two attempts the ink still refuses to run. She takes the pen from me wordlessly and dabs it on her studded tongue. When she hands it back it works, but the ink it dispenses is clotted and old.

I follow her upstairs, carrying my small leather bag over my shoulder. I make the mistake of touching the banister and my hand comes away feeling sticky. I try to discreetly rub it clean on the leg of my trousers, but instead stain them as well. When I ask after the woman I’d seen there years before, the young girl explains that she is that woman’s daughter, and hints that the Madison spill changed her mother in inexplicable ways, ways impossible to come back from. My smile is weak as I look away though I don’t know if it’s because of the girl’s mother or the mother’s child. The young girl gives me a half-hearted tour of the inn, her well-practised voice unable to disguise her boredom. She takes me down a corridor and along its length I see three other bedrooms. Only one door is ajar however, and I try to glance in while we pass but the gap is too narrow and the girl has guided me too quickly to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of something dark and wet seeping across the floor.

“This is your room,” she says, and hands me a key large enough for only a child’s hand. “The lock sticks sometimes and you need to pull it shut to move the bolt.” I smile and nod but she doesn’t return the courtesy. Instead, she tells me breakfast will be served downstairs at seven, and warns me not to be late.

I close the door and, after struggling with the lock, inspect the small room. It’s the same one in which Suzanne and I spent those past days together and for a moment my memories are superimposed over what is truly there. Instead of the stained wallpaper under an overcast day, I see sunlight and warmth; instead of a sagging bed and carpet that looks matted by a million little feet, I see Suzanne laughing as she jumps on the bed, the springs bouncing suggestively. I smile, and the act of smiling causes the mirage to dissipate, revealing the truth of the room, and the first thing I see is a crack that runs down the wall, starting a foot from the ceiling. At its base there is a dark wet mould that has grown into the carpet. I breathe out slowly and look in the mirror on top of the dresser. It too is covered in some greasy film, obscuring my features or twisting them into someone who looks far too old. I hear a noise and look towards the window but I see nothing there. Nothing at all.

I walk over a small bridge into the town of Port McCarthy. To my right, between the rooftops of the tiny stores, the dark grey clouds roll towards me, while beneath them dark waters churn. No one walks the streets but me, and it’s clear why as soon as I reach the grimy storefronts. They are closed; boarded for the coming winter. I wonder if it’s my timing that’s the issue. Had I arrived earlier, in June as before, would the town be bustling with the tourists that I remember Suzanne and I walking past, hand in hand, as we investigated the narrow streets? The two of us spent hours there, wandering through the tiny shops filled with trinkets and home-made crafts, each one comprising a tiny piece of a town that neither of us wanted to leave or ever forget. How different, I think, to now, when all I want is to somehow rid myself of the memories. I look just off the main street and the spectre of Suzanne is there waiting for me, wanting to evoke a memory I’d long ago suppressed.

Suzanne, standing in the sun, an ice-cream cone in one hand fresh from a cart by the edge of the water, pointing at a small sign affixed to a faux-antique lamppost.

“Look,” she said, “A new store’s just opened. Do you want to see inside?”

“I’m pretty tired,” I laughed. “And we’ve been on our feet for hours. Can’t we just rest for a bit?”

She handed me her cone.

“You sit on that bench. I’ll only be a minute.”

And she was off.

I laughed and waited, and as her treat melted I ate it with selfish glee. Yet, after twenty minutes she had not yet returned and I decided I’d had enough of sitting. I followed the direction she had taken until I came to an old house at the end of the small street. It looked much like any of the houses beside it, yet it had a hand-painted sign with the word ALICE’S written on it in children’s paint. The screen door was slightly ajar and I pulled it open to step into the dim room beyond.