Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

There was no one to turn to. No one at all.

I finished breakfast and went to get dressed.

The basement was cold, and I was bored.

It was late afternoon now, almost a full day since Mother had been locked inside. Time was running out.

I sat at the desk, watched the timer ticking down. 03:34:46… 03:34:45… 03:34:44…

The intercom had been silent, the cameras showed nothing, the monitors black as empty space. Anything could be happening inside the room.

On one hand, my parents could both be alive and well. Trapped, perhaps injured. But themselves. It was possible.

Or Mother might have turned, and not turned back. It usually took at least a day before she became herself again. But there was always the possibility it would be forever. I couldn’t trust her not to pretend. Not to trick me.

I watched the timer. My stomach rumbled. I was about to get up and find more food when Father’s electric voice came through the intercom.

“You there, Son?”

I froze. My mouth went dry. My eyes fell to the top of the desk. I was angry, anxious, scared. I ran a finger along the grooves in the tired old wood. My spine was itchy.

“I’m okay, Son. I was… hurt. I’m still hurt, but I’m awake now, and feeling better. Much better in fact.”

Father’s voice sounded ragged, his words coming too fast. His breathing was heavy. Irregular, he would say. Abnormal.

“Listen, I have a feeling our time is growing short in here. I don’t… according to my watch, anyway, I’d say we have only a few hours until the gas releases. Is that right?”

I looked at the timer. Getting close now. And it’s almost my birthday .

I was having a hard time thinking, my brain felt fuzzy, and I was so very tired. I rested my head on the desk, my ear flat against the rough wood, feet kicking air.

“Son. Please. We’re fine. We…”

More whispering.

“Your mother is still restrained. The keys… I don’t know where they are, but your mother is still restrained. And I’m hurt, not badly. But… I’m okay, you understand?”

I slipped down from the chair, walked to the room’s steel door. I pressed my ear against the cold metal and listened, but I could only hear the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears. I closed my eyes. My blood sounded like waves, like wind. Like the inside of a seashell.

I banged a fist against the door. Once, twice. Father’s voice came screaming over the intercom.

“That’s right! Oh, thank god! Son, listen, you need to turn off the gas . Do you understand? Or…”

Mother’s voice interrupted him. Loud, insistent.

“Do you want us to die, baby?” she said, sounding more and more like the eagle, high-pitched and scratchy. “Do you want to be alone? If you don’t open the door, we will die. We will die and you will be totally alone. I don’t mean to scare you but that’s the truth. Please, do you hear me?”

Then there was silence. They were waiting.

I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want this to be happening. I’d never felt more alone. I pressed my palm against the cool steel door. I didn’t want to make any hard decisions, didn’t want to be an adult.

I missed them so much.

I laid down at the foot of the door, curled into myself, and cried.

There is no time now.

I’ve waited, watched the timer tick slowly down.

00:02:13… 00:02:12… 00:02:11…

There is no way to stop the gas other than the green box. Opening the door, I know, will not stop it. The only way to stop it is by turning the little knob and resetting the timer, or shutting if off completely by flipping the small black switch. I take a deep breath. My decision is made.

I have no intention of stopping it.

I walk away from the table, cross the chilled air of the small basement toward the steel door, toward the room.

There is loud pounding from the door at the top of the stairs. Men yell savage curses.

I look to the stairs, toward the yelling. There must have been another fail-safe I didn’t know about, one that alerted Father’s friends. For a brief moment I panic, then relax. The door leading from the basement to the house is locked, reinforced, bolted. No one can get in without breaking it down, and it’s thick, solid. It would take time, and tools.

I take a deep breath. My parents have been quiet for the past hour or so. Waiting, I know. Hoping. I don’t know what’s inside the room. I have some ideas, some possible outcomes, in my mind.

Mother, hideously pale skin streaked with blue veins. Anger and flaring nostrils, yawning jaw. Her teeth, her eyes…

Father, poisoned by her, but alive. Reborn in monstrous flesh. Waiting, biding his time. Pacing frantically, his amped-up nerve endings flexing for the very first time, the air around him feeding energy into his altered bones, his sensitized flesh. A six-foot-tall rabid dog.

If I open the door they will run at me, grab me. Tear me apart.

But I imagine other options.

They are lying in there dead. Human or monster. Maybe half-turned. Maybe half-eaten.

Or maybe the room is empty.

Or maybe the room is gone.

What do I believe?

I want to believe it will be my parents, alive and human. Just Mother and Father, tired, perhaps injured. Hungry not for flesh but for freedom. Air, food, water. They will run to me and hug me. Kiss me on the face, wipe away my tears, rub my back soothingly. Sing to me at night. Take care of me. Protect me.

Everything will be like it was, and we will be together again.

Once I open the door, once I go inside…

I put my fingers on the smooth black panel that releases the heavy bolts of the lock. My face is burning, there is a throbbing pain behind my eyes. The men scream and pound. I can’t wait for the end. I’ve been counting down the numbers from the screen in my head.

… sixteen… fifteen…fourteen…

I’m tired, but I smile. I’ll be thirteen soon. I will change. One way or the other.

… nine… eight… seven… six…

I hear the faint sound of frantic scratching on the other side of the door. I can hear it through the steel. Desperate, monstrous. My parents clawing for life, maybe. Or something else. Something I haven’t thought of.

I love them so much.

… three… two… one…

I push the large black button, feel the click of the release vibrate up my arm. Metal slides on metal, the heavy door hisses.

I pull it open. The room is pitch black. Silent.

I step inside, ready for whatever waits.

There’s a shushing sound. The darkness is total. I move deeper into the room, confident.

It’s almost my birthday.

Something moves toward me. I lift my chin, spread out my arms.

No matter what comes…

I close my eyes tight.

…I will be a man .

Ileft the university campus behind to do field work in the Deep South. I was studying folk songs from southern states that had neither a time or place of origin nor a known composer. Those old songs that just seem to rise out of cultural folklore and evangelical mysticism like steam rising from a swamp. Songs that had been sung for generations by slaves and slave owners, Baptist ministers and backwoods preachers, and whose chords had been strung by banjos and whistled on whiskey jugs. Those songs presented a mystery to me; one that seemed to be known and understood in the Deep South but eluded myself and others in the halls of academe.