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

Gertrude (Mrs Harry Brown) Roberts had finally, after years of trying everything in the pharmacopeia, found something which would put her to sleep and keep her to sleep. Ten minutes after she had taken it — an interval long enough to read her nightly number of lines from the Bible and to say her prayers (she now left the Catholics and Episcopalians for last, as she drifted into slumber) — her toothless mouth would open in her bony face and she would begin to snore. This, as it usually woke him up, was her old husband’s signal that he was once again a free man for the night.

“So, Gertrude Sayer,” he hissed at the unresponsive body on the far side of the bed; “taking more than a thimbleful of brandy is wrong, is it? But doping your soul into subconsciousness with that chemical counterfeit of poppy and mandragore is all right, is it? Stuff! Poppycock! But just like a Sayer!”

Old Harry Roberts got out of bed; the night air being just a bit chill, he put on his second-best frock coat (the one he saved for commencements and inaugurations, saving the very best one for Board meetings) over his nightshirt, and shuffled along the street in his carpet slippers. There were no passers-by and had there been, few would have given him a second glance and had any done so it would have been a glance of approval. New England still dearly cherished its eccentrics. had any identified him as one.

H. Brown Roberts was soon at a certain side-door to the General Museum of the Province of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, of which he was still Librarian Emeritus and a member of the Budget Committee. He let himself in with his keys. A moment later he was once again deep into the immense annals of the Underground Railroad, on which he had long planned a series of books, and thus he stayed. From time to frequent time he muttered to himself about the Fugitive Slave Act and the Free Soil Whigs, and his great grandmother Brown and his great grandfather Roberts, both of whom were conductors on the Underground Railroad; when glancing up he observed one of the passengers.

“Oh, my poor fellow!” H.B.R. exclaimed, rising to his feet. “Are you one of the stowaways aboard the cotton-boat from Charleston? Never do fear, we shall see you safe to Canada. but perhaps you are hungry, did they give you some hot victuals in the kitchen? What? Not? Well just you come with me.” The hallway seemed a trifle strange to him, as he padded along it, followed by the silent figure. Presently they entered another room, which he did not precisely recognize as either a part of the old Roberts or of the old Brown house. though to be sure, some of the furnishings… It was not the kitchen, whatever it was, although. “Ha! There is the porcelain ginger-jar which Merchant Houqua of the Hong gave to Reuben Roberts. Hmm, I believe that in this cabinet one should find. Drat, it is locked! Pshaw! Have you, perchance with you, no, I suppose not, a lever with a thin end to it?”

The dark and silent stowaway produced an enormous screwdriver, and had the cabinet opened in a second. Inside, however, was no bread, no cold meat or mutton soup, no hasty pudding. What there was in it were two bottles of brandy. Seizing first one and then the other, the liberated three-fifths of a person smote the bottom of each bottle a great blow with the flat of his great hand, neatly popped each cork; and handed one bottle to Dr H. Brown Roberts.

“An excellent stratagem! Yes, yes. Hmm, no glasses, I suppose, in the cotton fields away.” He raised his bottle and sniffed. “An excellent Fundador. Ha hm. Here is to your good health, my man and my brother, and to your prosperity in Nova Scotia. Ah, ha, mmm.”

The dark stranger was an excellent guest, that is, he neither interrupted nor made any comment himself. When his voice was heard for the first time, it was deep and rough: “I wants that head.”

“Oh you do, do you? Do you? If you expect to trade it to the Bluenoses for rum, let me tell you that a quarter-quintal of codfish would be a likelier item.” Harry Roberts looked at his guest and had another tot from the brandy bottle, and why not? — he was already saved, wasn’t he? Yes he was. “Well, it doesn’t signify and I see no reason why you shouldn’t have it, for the acquisition was never authorized. Want that head? With taste and scent, no argument. Old Reuben Roberts brought one back from the Moluccas packed in cloves once. Well, the cloves were from the Moluccas.” They were walking down the hall by now. “Here we are; I have a key to the door, mm-hm, but my key no longer fits this lock, for Selby Silas, wretched fellow, had the lock changed, confound him, a Methodist!”

A few wrenches with the huge screwdriver, and another cabinet was open. A hideous odor filled the room; there was the head, and the supposed follower of the Drinking Gourd gave a grunt of recognition. “Don’t touch it, my good fellow, they will scarcely let you on the cars if you reek of it, and certainly it would frighten the horses. Hmm. Ah! Scrape it off the shelf into these plastic bags and tie a knot. Drop them into this one. Tie another knot. And another. Ha, Selby Silas, his face will be a sight! Well, was it an authorized acquisition? No it was not! You are going now? Avoid Boston, the cotton-brokers are hand in glove with the — well, I needn’t tell you. Travel only at night, and take the back roads to Amherst. Rattle on the rear-windows of Moses Stuart, the house with the high stone fence.” The Librarian Emeritus affixed a small piece of paper (from the waste-basket, its back was unused) to the cabinet door with a very tiny piece of Scotch tape, wrote APRIL FOOL on it, and decided to go home.

Harry Roberts, who rumor had it owned half the mortgages in Newport, hid the bottle behind great grand-uncle Erastus Everett’s second edition of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, where Gertrude eventually found it, as she eventually found everything. She never said a word, but decided it was time to bake fruit-cake. The raisins were getting dry anyway, and, with the windfall of the Spanish brandy, the cake should be just about ready to eat by Christmas.

The Mustee had not, as a matter of fact, planned on taking the horse-cars; or whatever remnants of the railroad which capital, management, labor, or government had left of the system. He made his way to a certain section of town, and there he walked slowly up and down the emptied streets, looking at license plates. The furthest southern origin he could find was New York, so, with a shrug, and a rather rapid use of the useful screwdriver, he let himself into the small truck’s cab, dropped his burden between his knees, and applied his lips to the brandy bottle. Then he simply settled into his seat. And waited. After a while someone else, humming a frolicsome air, also entered the truck-cab, though from the other side, and, catching sight of his passenger, attempted to tumble out backwards. A very long, very strong arm caught and drew him back in. “We goin sout,” said the Mustee.

“Yes sir, Big Blood,” the driver said. “We goin’ south. No doubt ‘bout that.”

Crossing into New York City in the gritty light of dawn, the driver realized that although his passenger was either dead or dead drunk, the truck was not his own. He therefore parked the vehicle in front of its owner’s garage, gestured to the owner, and called, “You got it.” Then he left the truck, turned a corner, and ran like hell.

The owner did not put down his coffee. He languidly eyed the truck, languidly kicked a tire, locked the garage, and ambled off to breakfast.

The truck was already under the scrutiny of the pioneer squad of a social group, called many amusing names by those who were not themselves members. Though not… as a rule… in the presence of the social group, all of whom hailed from a lovely tropical hamlet near Ponce. The group members called themselves The Christian Heroes. They cared little that the religious practices of their native hamlet were not up to the highest standards of Orthodoxy. And little cared their fathers and their mothers.