Stephen Jones: The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

“Get away from me, Michael.” He paused. “If you don’t, I’ll tell Denise.”

I stood there, silent, and watched him leave.

This time I observed the speed limit on my way home. A ghostly Dorothy rode shotgun. Toto sat in her lap. I didn’t recall seeing the mutt before. A taxidermist had worked him over, mounting him to a wood base, so he traveled well, no tongue-flapping out the window, no prancing from one side to the other, claws digging into your thighs. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man held the rear seats.

All four were quiet, which didn’t bother me. Maybe the daylight silenced them. I parked in my slot, killed the engine. When I climbed out, chaff and aluminum dust and the ripe scent of a dead dog floated through the empty interior.

The apartment hall was empty. I pressed my hands against the cold surface of Denise’s door. The number and letter glimmered as each reflected the fluorescent light, incandescent with a promise like prophecy. I knew now that I wanted to see. The knowledge might release me.

My fingers ached where I touched the door, as if the wood sucked at my bones, robbing them of warmth. The 2C pulsed and my breath frosted the air, crystallizing inside my chest until I forgot to breathe.

Then my legs buckled under fatigue and gravity, and the door answered my weakness with its own, selling its solid soul so I could fall through into the reality that lay beyond.

Dry grass rustled beneath me as I fell to my knees. A brick-paved road ran past, its surface a river of yellow pus baked solid under a neon-strobe sun. Disease festered in the scabbed cracks, more efficient as a contagion than as mortar.

The Tin Man’s cabin sat across from me, wearing its abandonment like a badge. The logs sagged, eaten by dry rot and unable to sustain their weight. Years had passed since glass sealed the windows and thick cobwebs, choked with dead insects, served as the only curtains. The stone chimney wore moss and ivy like a fur coat, its only protection against the cold. Large gaps riddled the roof’s green slate like open sores. In the places where there were not yet holes the sun glinted off shallow pools of water.

I stood and crossed the road, glancing left and right along its bumpy length — no one was visible in either direction. Not the intrepid trio or their hanged observer.

Light fell through the rear windows and the roof, illuminating the room. The sun had almost died in the west, but it was enough so I could pick out the familiar details of Denise’s apartment.

From the front window to the door, I picked out the vague outlines of furniture. A mildewed couch slumped on broken legs. Two rickety crates supported several planks that served as a table, with an apish skull still wearing shreds of flesh as a centerpiece. Instead of the entertainment center, a cauldron sat before the fireplace, its mealy contents still bubbling.

A mask hung above the mantel like a trophy stuffed and mounted by a hunter. The facial lines were soft, cheeks frozen in a perpetual smile, spawning dimples on both corners. But the eyes were empty and soulless, the mouth a toothless hole, and they sucked away whatever resemblance to humanity the mask ever possessed.

It was Denise.

I backed away from the cabin, dazed by what I’d seen. Before I knew it, I’d crossed the road to my original entry point, just as a dark shape moved across the cabin roof, catching my eye. The Wicked Witch froze, straddling the peak like an Impressionist vision of the Statue of Liberty, broom held high in place of a torch.

“It took you long enough, Michael,” she said, her smile as uneven as the road. “I thought I’d need to send someone out after you again.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Denise, but I’m finished with these dreams.”

She cackled. “Stubborn to a fault, Michael. I love that. The longer you doubt, the closer I get. Eventually, it will be too late…”

I walked towards the cabin, my first steps tentative as loose bricks threatened to turn my ankles. I stopped once, crouched, pulled one broken piece loose, steeled myself against the slimy feel as I clenched it in my fist. I needed a weapon. I didn’t think this ball-sized brick would hurt her, but it might serve as a distraction.

“You’re right. I don’t believe.” Debris littered the yard between the cabin and the road and matched the landscape of my chaotic dreams. “You’ve drugged or hypnotized me. Whichever, I don’t care. It’s over.”

From behind the trees the Scarecrow moved into the clearing. Dorothy and the Tin Man skulked in his shadow.

“Calling in your troops, Denise?” I asked.

Age lines shredded each of their faces, changing grins into something as old as the brown apples piled under the trees, something as calculated as the way the trees’ prehensile branches reached out, straining against the roots that kept each woody demon in place.

“Her name isn’t Denise,” said the Tin Man, brandishing an ax that looked freshly honed. “I don’t think she has one.”

“Names don’t matter here,” the Scarecrow said.

“Is that why you told me to talk to Stan?”

The Scarecrow cringed, glanced at the Wicked Witch. His companions backed away. I looked at the Wicked Witch too, expecting her to nail his straw frame with a quick fireball.

“You warned him?” she asked.

“No! No! I was trying to prepare him!”

The Wicked Witch leaped off the roof, black dress billowing behind her like crows hovering around a fresh kill. She landed in the middle of the road, nimble as a black widow.

Forget the rock, I thought. I needed something bigger if I wanted to come out of this alive. I crouched beside rubble from the chimney, dropped my brick and grabbed a discarded axe handle where it lay half-buried among the weeds.

The Scarecrow trembled, begged. “Please don’t hurt me! Please!”

The Wicked Witch formed her hand into a claw. Eldritch flames sprouted from her bitten nails, knotted into a pulsing globe.

“I release you, Scarecrow! I give you your freedom — in death!”

She hurled the fire and the Scarecrow tried to block it with upraised hands.

The ball hit him and ate his body up in seconds.

The Wicked Witch stepped into the yard, blocked my way to the road, as the Tin Man and Dorothy circled the Scarecrow’s smoldering remains. If I braved the apple orchard, I’d have to fight them both, one armed with an ax, the other with a dead dog.

“This is taking too long,” the Wicked Witch said. “It’s time for you to join me, Michael.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Denise.” I waved the ax handle before me.

“My name is not Denise. I can’t remember my name. It’s been such a long time since I heard it.”

“But if you’re not Denise…”

My words trailed off. I let my eyes trace the lines in her face. I barely recognized the woman I’d flirted with in the hallway. She might be there under the thick cheeks, the warts, the bony chin and green skin, but there wasn’t enough to convince me.

“Then… I must be the Wicked Witch!” she said.

I swung my weapon and reached for the roof. The handle cracked when it hit, cut my hands as it splintered. The Tin Man was nearest the cabin and he screamed. His voice squeaked. You’re going to need to oil more than that, buddy. My blow shook the roof’s remaining boards and the water puddles washed into the yard, striking the Tin Man. He scrambled into the road, metal limbs clanking, joints squealing from friction. The shower streaked Dorothy’s make-up, washed her brown tresses blonde, knocked Toto from her arms.

The Wicked Witch smiled.

She raised her claws to meet the deluge running across her body, black rags clinging to her stick frame. The shape beneath was suddenly too skeletal and bulged in all the wrong places, cancerous and demonic. She licked the stagnant moisture off her lips with a leprous tongue, slurping at the algae.