Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

And always, the pressure, the pressure.

From everywhere.

"I used to like you," I said. My voice sounded slurred, even to me.

"Do you need pills or something?" she said. "Amy, focus."

She was a long way away.

I was too far gone.

It's always the way.

As soon as the killing questions start, things begin to drift out of order, and I really can't be going round dragging them all back into place.

I let them just be whispers, mostly, the questions, the voices.

Somewhere someone was saying: "Amy, I'm calling an ambulance."

An ambulance?

Preposterous, I'm fine.

But the words no longer came out.

The police came, as they do on such occasions.

I felt sorry for Tish. I'd lied to her, long ago, when I had told her there wasn't a twist.

Of course, there was.

Of course there was a fucking twist.

With ghosts, there always is.

But some girls are stronger than others.

Tish was a strong one. She came to see me in hospital, as soon as my doctor declared I was fit enough for visitors.

She brought a teddy bear. That made me smile. Gifts are always better when they're furry.

She sat on the edge of my bed, took my hand, smiled.

"How are you?" she said.

"Oh, you know. Clowns to the left of me." I lowered my voice. "Doctors to the right."

She took a split-second to decide that I was joking, which I was, pretty much.

She kissed my forehead.

I readied myself for the undoing of it all.

"So," I asked her, "have you talked to them?"

"Who?"

"Who do you think?"

"I think you mean your parents."

"I do. Have you talked to my parents, and Alice-Jane?"

"Yeah, I met them. They came round to the flat."

"What do you think?"

"Your parents seem, you know, pretty private. And your sister's… "

She tried to think of a polite word.

"It's okay," I said, "you can say it. She's a bitch. She was nicer when she was five. That's why she's always five years old, to me."

"Makes sense," said Tish.

She smiled.

"I like this bear," I said, clutching him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Have you moved out yet?"

"Out of where?"

"The flat."

"No. Why? Do you want me out?"

"Of course not. I want you there. If you want to be there."

"I want to be there."

"That's good," I said. "That's very good. One thing, though. We buy an answering machine. My brother rings me when the leaves start changing. Before, sometimes. Next year, I don't want to speak to him. Not in the run-up to Christmas. He's always the same. It drives me nuts. The pressure's-"

"We'll get an answering machine," Tish said.

"That's good," I said. "That's good. I hate that he rings me."

I held on to the bear.

"I know," said Tish.

"That's good too," I said.

She smiled, kissed my forehead again. "I should go, I'll come back tomorrow. Oh, I tell you someone else I met. I went to the pub. Mrs Nash is-"

"Alive and well, I know," I said. "It's just this thing I have. I get mixed up. It's… "

"I know," she said. "I know."

She stood up to go.

"Wait," I said, "I have a present for you."

I opened the drawer in the bedside table.

"You do?" she said.

The drawer was empty.

"Well, no. Not at the moment. But when I get home, I'll buy you something. Lots of things. Not candles though."

"You don't have to buy anything," she said. "Just look after the bear for me."

"Yes," I said. She turned to go. "And Tish?"

"What?"

"I know it's strange, but if my brother rings, could you tell him what's happened to me?"

"He already has," said Tish. "I spoke to him and told him everything's fine. He sends his love. He says to tell you the fishing's great."

She smiled.

She left.

I looked at the bear.

The bear looked back at me, not up to speed.

I did my best.

"See," I said to the bear, "my brother worries about me, especially at Christmas. So he phones. You understand?"

Silence. Bears are slow, sometimes. Perhaps they give him drugs.

I sympathised. Been there, done that.

I carried on with the story. Slowly.

"My brother fell in the river, while he was fishing, when he was nine, and he didn't get out again. Actually, when I say he fell it was more like he was pushed. And guess who pushed him?"

Bear didn't care to guess, so I put my lips to his ear, and whispered it.

"It was little Alice-Jane that pushed him. But she was only five and she's forgotten. I saw it and I didn't forget, but I never told. I was seven, and I saved her from knowing what she did. But because of what she did she died in my mind, and because I couldn't tell my parents, they died too. It got mixed up. But it doesn't matter. My brother's body is water under the bridge and everything's fine. Except, well, he phones sometimes. That's not so fine."

And then I fell quiet and thought about all the ghosts who weren't ghosts, not really, and I thought about the single ghost who was.

"My brother doesn't have the family I made for him. There's no Sarah or the girls, not really. It's just him."

I looked at the bear.

I'd never told anyone any of this stuff.

"When we go home again, you mustn't tell Tish about my brother. She wouldn't like that. She'd leave. Bad enough living with someone who talks to a dead person. She'd hate it if she knew that she talks to him as well."

The bear looked dubious.

"Believe me," I said, "she'd hate it. Let's spare her that. She'd only leave."

And then I fell silent again, and thought about home, and how nice it would be when I got back. This time I'd be good and stay on the pills. I'd flushed them in July, before Tish moved in, and just stayed on the thyroid ones. This time, I'd be good, and Tish would help me take them.

"Everything is going to be fine," I said to the bear, to see what the words sounded like.

But he stayed quiet and stared glass-eyed at the ceiling, a million miles away, and it reminded me of my brother.

I closed my eyes against the idea of our telephone ringing, and Tish answering again, and his voice coming all the way from his far and empty home, where there was no family, no company, no fishing, no anything, just confusion and worrying when the leaves began to change.

I thought of the lonely flat I would go home to, if my brother told Tish where he was, under the water.

And then it would be me and the telephone, forever, just me waiting for his voice and-

But no.

This was a time for getting well and positive thinking.

"Everything is going to be fine," I whispered to the bear.

A phone rang, then. It made me jump, just for a second.

But then I realised it was the phone that rang far down the hospital corridor. It was not an omen or a sign.

People ring telephones all the time, in hospitals.

I opened my eyes again.

I shifted so I lay on my back.

The bear and I stared at the ceiling together.

"What do you see?" I said to the bear.

But the bear kept his counsel and we lay there in silence, waiting for tomorrow and for Tish to come again and everything to be fine, as it would be, surely.

The phone rang down the corridor, many times.

And though I jumped each time, it was okay. Bears stay quiet and telephones ring and girls get jumpy.

It's just the nature of things.

It's fine, it really is.

And pressure sometimes builds until you break.

We lay there, staring up at the white of the ceiling all afternoon, and we stared up at the grey as the room turned darker as evening approached.

As night fell we stared at the darkness, lying still, just thinking.