Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

The demon is close as can be. It has hold of the boy’s leg. It is climbing up him . Its tail is coiled about his knee — Oh God, its head is lying on his thigh. The head has tilted. It gazes up at him. It has wrapped him in its grip. He does not — he does not know .

I shall write no more now. I do not want to open this diary again. The lights of London will be coming soon, out of the autumn dusk. Smells of smoke, cooking, and unhygenic humanity. Thank God. Thank God I have got away. Thank God. Thank God.

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From a letter by Lucy Wright to her friend J.B.:

1st November 195-:

Your letter did cheer me up a bit, though I cried a bit after. Yes, I’d love to come for a visit, and it would help to get my mind off — this. Then, I feel guilty. But what can I do? I was totally in the dark. I didn’t know. He never confided in me. I don’t understand. I’d always known Gordon was a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud. But he was kind and hardworking, and I did hope he’d get round to popping the question one day. No one else has made any offers. And of course, he was well-off. Not that that was my main reason. But, well, I’ve never been rich, and it would be nice, not to worry all the time, where the rent’s coming from, or if you can afford a new pair of nylons.

The funny thing was, when he came back from that house of his uncle’s in the country (and strangely he wouldn’t discuss that at all), he couldn’t see enough of me. We were out every night, like a couple of twenty-year-olds. The pictures, concerts, even dinners in a lovely little restaurant up West. And he made a real fuss of me. He even bought me roses. I thought, this is it. He’s going to ask me now. And I thought, I can change him, get him to brighten up a bit. But then — well it was a funny thing that happened. It was really silly and — nasty. Peculiar.

It was my birthday — that was the time he gave me the roses — and one of my cousins, Bunty, well she sent me a really lovely present. It was a little camera. What do you expect -1 wanted to use it. And one night when Gordon and I were in that nice restaurant, I was showing him the camera, and the manager, who knows Gordon, came up and said, “Let me take a picture of you, Mr Martyce, and your young lady.” Well I was a bit giggly — we’d had some lovely wine — and I was all for it, but Gordon got really funny. No, I mean he got he really angry, sort of well — frightened, red in the face — but the manager just laughed, and he took the photograph anyway, with me very nervous and Gordon all hard and angry and scared. The manager said Gordon would have to be less camera-shy, for the wedding.

I thought, Gordon’s angry because he feels he’s being forced to think about that, about getting married. And he doesn’t want to. And that depressed me, because things had seemed to be going so well. So it ended up a miserable evening. And he took me home. And — well. That was the last time I saw him. I mean, the last time I saw him. Because I don’t count the funeral. How can I? They had to close the coffin. Anyway. He was dead then. I’m sorry. Look, a tear’s fallen in the ink. What a silly girl. Crying over a man that didn’t even want me.

Of course, I did speak to him just once more, on the telephone.

He rang me up about a week after the dinner, and he said he was going to collect the films — the photographs, you see. And I was glad he’d rung me, so I said yes. I was a bit embarrassed, because the rest of the film was all of my family, dad and mum, and Alice and the babies, and it was the first time I’d taken any photo-graphs, and I was sure they’d be bad.

But then I didn’t hear again, and the next thing was, the policeman coming round in the afternoon, just as I was trying to get money in that rotten meter that’s so stiff. My washing was everywhere — it was Saturday — but he didn’t look. He helped me with the meter and then he put me in a chair, and he told me. Gordon had gone out on the Northern Line and — well, you know. He’d fallen under a train. Well they said, he’d thrown himself under. People had seen him do it. But how can I believe that? I mean, Gordon. It must be a mistake. But then, where was he going? He doesn’t have any relatives, and no friends out that way. Didn’t have. Well.

But I was so glad to get your kind letter. You see, I went round to Gordon’s flat this afternoon, they let me, because there were a few things of mine there, a couple of books I tried to get Gordon to read — I don’t think he did — and some gloves I’d left, little things — oh, and a casserole dish I’d bought him. It was a nice one. I thought I’d better have it, now.

And on the table in his room, there were the photographs. The police had obviously been there, because things were a bit disturbed, not the way Gordon would have left them. But the odd thing was, these photographs were lying on a newspaper, and they’d stuck to it, so they must have got wet. And — there was a strong smell of whisky, as if he’d spilled some. Maybe he had. He’d been drinking more lately, more than I’d known him do. I remember he said something strange — something about using a spirit to show a spirit. But he was always too clever for me.

Any way, I did look at the photographs, and I wondered if I could take them home, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t, though I can’t see that they’ll be any help to the police or anyone. Actually, I hadn’t done too badly for a beginner. The ones of the babies are really nice, though I’d made Alice look a bit fat, and she wouldn’t like that. The last one was the one the manager at the restaurant took of Gordon and me, and it was really a pity. I admit, it made me cry a bit. Because, it would have been nice to have a picture of him and me together, something to remember him by. It wasn’t just that we looked really daft — me all grinning and silly, and Gordon so puffed up and upset. No, there was this horrible big red and yellowish mark on the picture -1 suppose something went wrong when it was taken, perhaps some light got in, or something, that can happen, can’t it?

The funny thing is, I can’t explain this, but there was something — something really awful about this mark. It sounds crazy and you’ll think I’m a proper dope. You know what an imagination I’ve got. You see, it looked to me like a funny sort of animal — a sort of snake thing, with hands — and a face. And the oddest part of all, it was in just this place that it looked as if it was sitting square on Gordon’s shoulders, with its tail coming down his collar, and its arm-things round his throat, and its face pressed close to his, as if it loved him and would never let go.

Steve Rasnic tem has published hundredsof short stories in such magazines and anthologies as Fantasy Tales, Weirdbook, Whispers, Twilight Zone, Crimewave, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Third Alternative, New Terrors 1, Shadows, Cutting Edge, Dark at Heart, Forbidden Acts, MetaHorror, Dark Terrors 3, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, Bedtime Stories to Darken Your Dreams, White of the Moon, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and previous volumes of the Best New Horror.

His first (and to date, only) novel, Excavation, was published in 1987, and he won the 1988 British Fantasy Award for his story “Leaks”. A collection entitled Ombres sur la Route appeared in France several years ago, and a new collection is forthcoming from Ash-Tree Press.

About the following story, Tem recalls: “I visited Memphis numerous summers as a child, and I found it to be a rather exotic place compared to my native southwest Virginia. The other element generating the story is the years we’ve spent remodelling and restoring our Victorian home (all sixteen rooms of it). I finished the final area last summer (the attic).