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

“My dear, I heard nothing. Are you sure it wasn’t a bird of some kind?”

“No, of course, it wasn’t a bird. It was nothing like a bird. I would have said if it was a bird. Are you sure you heard nothing?”

“Quite sure, my dear,” says Dean Coombe in his mildest voice, though inwardly he seethes with impatience. The truth is, he has heard something, but he does not want to prolong the conversation with his wife. Mrs Coombe expresses her incredulity with a pronounced sniff and leaves the room, shutting the door in a marked manner.

As soon as she is gone the Dean has taken the ring from his pocket once again and begins to pore over the designs in the book. So intent is he on his studies that at first he really does not hear the odd crackling noise that begins to manifest itself outside his window. It is a sound like the snapping of dry twigs. Slowly however, he becomes vaguely aware of some mild irritant assaulting the outer reaches of his consciousness, but he applies himself all the more ferociously to his research. Then something taps on his window.

Startled he looks up. What was it? The beak of a bird? There it is again! No, it is not a bird. Some sort of twig-like object or objects were rattling against the pane. Perhaps his wife had been right and it was those wretched workhouse boys up to their pranks. Dean Coombe goes to the window and opens it.

It was at this moment that a Mrs Meggs happened to be passing the Deanery. She was the wife of a local corn merchant and a woman of irreproachable respectability. I had the good fortune to interview her at some length about what she saw that evening, and, after some initial reluctance, she proved to be a most conscientious witness.

Despite the gathering dusk, she told me, there was still light enough to see by. What she saw first was something crouching in the flowerbed below the window of the Dean’s study. It appeared to be a man in rags, “though ’twas all skin and bone, and more like a scarecrow than a living being,” she told me. The man’s hands were raised above his head, and with his immensely long and narrow fingers he appeared to be rattling on the Dean’s window. Then Mrs Meggs saw the Dean open the window and look out, “very cross in the face,” as she put it. Immediately the figure that had been crouched below the windowsill reared up and appeared to embrace the Dean with its long thin arms. It might have looked like a gesture of affection except that for a moment Mrs Meggs saw the expression on Dean Coombe’s face which, she said, was one of “mortal terror”.

“Next moment,” Mrs Meggs told me, “the thin fellow in rags had launched himself through the window after the Dean and I heard a crash inside. Then I heard some shouting and some words, not distinct, but I do remember hearing the Dean cry out, ‘God curse you, take your ring back, you fiend!’ And I remember thinking such were not the words that should be uttered by a Man of God, as you might say. Then comes another crashing, and a cry such as I never hope to hear again as long as I live. It was agony and terror all in one. Well, by this time I was got to the door of the Deanery and banging on it with my umbrella for dear life. The maid lets me in, all of a flutter, and when we come to the Dean’s study, Mrs Dean and Miss Leonora, the Dean’s daughter, were there already, and Miss Leonora screaming fit to wake the dead. And who could blame her, poor mite? For I saw the Dean and he was all stretched back in his chair, his head twisted, and his mouth open and black blood coming out of it. There was no expression in the eyes, for he had no eyes, but only black and scorched holes as if two burning twigs had been thrust into their sockets.”

Only one thing remains to tell. At the Dean’s funeral in the cathedral some weeks later it was noticed that, though the widow was present, Dean Coombe’s daughter, Leonora was not. However, as the congregation were leaving the cathedral after the service, they heard a cry in the air above them. Looking up they saw a tiny figure on the south tower of the west front. It appeared to be that of a woman waving her arms in the air. Some of the more sharp-sighted among the crowd recognised the figure as that of Miss Leonora Coombe.

In horrified impotence they watched as Leonora mounted the battlements of the tower and hurled herself off it onto the flagstone path at the base of the cathedral. Her skirts billowed out during the fall but did nothing to break it, and, as she descended, all the rooks in the elms of the close seemed to rise as one and set up their hoarse cries of “kaa, kaa, kaa”.

When Leonora hit the ground her head was shattered, and the only mercy of it was that she had died instantly.

Later, in recalling this final episode of the tragedy, several witnesses quoted to me, as if compelled by some inner voice, those final words of the 137th psalm:

“Happy shall he be that taketh thy children and dasheth them against the stones.”

JOE R. LANSDALE IS the author of over thirty novels, the latest of which is Edge of Dark Water . He has written numerous short stories and articles, screenplays, teleplays for animated TV shows, and comic scripts.

Lansdale is a recipient of the Edgar Award, the British Fantasy Award, nine Bram Stoker Awards, and a Grandmaster Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from The Horror Writers Association, amongst many others.

His novella “Bubba Ho-Tep” was filmed by Don Coscarelli in 2002 and is considered an independent film classic. He is currently writing a new novel and producing and co-producing films.

As the author explains: “‘The Crawling Sky’ is one of the stories I’ve written about the Reverend, a reluctant servant of God.

“He is inspired by Robert E. Howard’s weird westerns — maybe there’s a bit of Solomon Kane, certainly there’s some Jonah Hex and Sergio Leone, working in the background, and then for this tale there’s also Lovecraft, and every creepy-crawly comic I ever read.

“Add to that an odd sky formation I watched for a while, you have this story.”

WOOD TICK WASN’T so much as town as it was a wide rip in the forest. The Reverend Jebediah Mercer rode in on ebony horse on a coolish autumn day beneath an overcast sky of humped up, slow-blowing, gun-metal-grey clouds; they seemed to crawl. It was his experience nothing good ever took place under a crawling sky. It was an omen, and he didn’t like omens, because, so far in his experience, none of them were good.

Before him, he saw a sad excuse for a town: a narrow clay road and a few buildings, not so much built up as tossed up, six altogether, three of them leaning south from northern winds that had pushed them. One of them had had a fireplace of stone, but it had toppled, and no one had bothered to rebuild it. The stones lay scattered about like discarded cartridges. Grass, yellowed by time, had grown up through the stones, and even a small tree had sprouted between them. Where the fall of the fireplace had left a gap was a stretch of fabric, probably a slice of tent; it had been nailed up tight and it had turned dark from years of weather.

In the middle of the town there was a wagon with wooden bars set into it and a flat heavy roof. No horses. Its axle rested on the ground giving the wagon a tilt. Inside, leaning, the Reverend could see a man clutching at the bars, cursing at a half-dozen young boys who looked likely to grow up to be ugly men, who were throwing rocks at him. An old man was sitting on the precarious porch of one of the leaning buildings, whittling on a stick. A few other folks moved about, crossing the street with the enthusiasm of the ill, giving no mind to the boys or the man in the barred wagon.