Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

On the table in front of me is an unproofed manuscript, its ink still wet. The handwriting I recognise as my own, but the penmanship is wild and abandoned, and the ink has spattered several passages where the pen-nibs have torn entirely through the paper.

Reading the pages, I find that they contain the above narrative . . . excepting these last paragraphs. But have I written fiction, or reportage? This manuscript is filled with incident, yet my memory is a blank page. I remember nothing of these recent hours.

Are these words on the page truth, or falsehood? Have I nightmared all of this, or some portion? Or is all of it real, in cold sanity? Did I go to Memorial Church tonight? Have I confronted Maelzel’s Automaton? Is the man inside that clockwork hoax the unmourned David Poe? Have I murdered my father? Did I set the church ablaze?

There are shouts in the hall. Someone is pounding on the door, and there are voices.

I must see what they require of me.

RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON

Making Cabinets

RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON IS A NOVELIST, short story writer and screenwriter/producer. He has written and produced hundreds of episodes of television, for over thirty dramatic and comedic primetime network series and, at nineteen, was the youngest writer ever put under contract by Universal Studios.

He has written feature film and television projects for Richard Donner, Mel Brooks, Joel Silver, Ivan Reitman, Steven Spielberg and many others. To date, Matheson has written and sold twelve original, spec feature scripts; considered a record. He has also written over twenty pilots for comedy and dramatic series for Showtime, Fox, NBC, ABC, Spike and CBS.

Matheson recently wrote three scripts for Showtime’s Masters of Horror (the first two directed by Tobe Hooper), while for TNT’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes he wrote the critically acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “Battleground”, a one-hour episode starring William Hurt. His decision to write the entire script with no dialogue amazed critics and The New York Times called the episode “. . . a minor masterpiece.” He is currently scripting two feature films and an eight-hour mini-series for director Bryan Singer.

Thirty stories are collected in Matheson’s Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks , with an introduction by Stephen King. Dystopia , a hardcover collection of sixty stories is introduced by Peter Straub. His debut novel, Created By , was Bantam’s hardcover lead, a Bram Stoker Award winner and a Book-of-the-Month Club lead selection. It has been translated into several languages.

“In a culture intoxicated by extreme,” observes Matheson, “serial killers, inevitably, are fabled. In their ghastly, photogenic wakes, are collateral victims; those, still living, who knew the killer as routine participant in life – children, co-workers, friends, wives. Once news coverage, funerals and death penalties are eclipsed by fresher abduction and atrocity, the serial killer’s inner circle must continue, despite betrayal which inverts their world.

“ ‘Making Cabinets’ spends time with such a person. Its first draft was fleshless outline. Details were added, though few. In all, I wanted the feelings of aftermath to be a traumatised void.”

ICE WATER; a diamond stalk on white linen.

The clearness tastes warm, red. The thin woman chokes, covers mouth with napkin.

One table over, a boy eats pie, eyes unblinking. Watches her hold menu in pale hands.

She scans gourmet adjectives. Imagines soups, meats. Their dark succulence, piquant sauces.

All of it horror .

She searches more dishes, stomach a sick pit.

Maybe a salad, no dressing.

But the tomatoes; the cook would slice them open, their seeded flesh unprotected, seeping helplessly .

The waitress approaches. Perhaps the Special of the Day? Lamb. Unspiced; a meticulous blank.

The thin woman’s stomach twists. She imagines the dead flesh using her mouth like a coffin; fights nausea.

Why hadn’t she heard them?

The waitress tilts head. The thin woman needs another minute. The waitress nods; the same conversation everyday.

A couple, at the next table, excavate lobster, amused by lifeless claws. The busboy sweeps; a metronome.

The thin woman sees the boy eating pie, his lips berry-blue like a corpse.

Electric saws, pounding hammers .

Maybe the vermicelli. Plain.

But the long strands, like fine, blonde hair .

She tries to sip water, again. But the cubes have melted; water like dread-warm saliva.

His gentle smile, serving his recipes. The perfect husband .

The waitress reminds her she must eat. She loses more weight every day. She’s so pretty. It was almost a year ago. She must move on. The thin woman listens, nods. Tries not to look at the boy.

Making cabinets, he’d said; basement door always locked .

The thin woman looks up at the waitress. The young woman’s lipstick resembles a tortured mouth.

She runs between the red lips, down lightless corridor to the banned door. Inside, music deafens. She presses ear to door; hears blades severing. Pounds on door until it gives .

Finds two little boys, hanging upside down from ropes, screaming through gagged mouths, half peeled. He turns, goggles freckled red, black rubber apron stained. The stove behind him gurgles with spiced stews .

The thin woman tells the waitress she’s lost her appetite.

Maybe tomorrow.

The boy’s smile falls as he watches her leave, bones and veins visible through her starved skin.

GEOFF RYMAN

Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)

GEOFF RYMAN WAS BORN in Canada, but he has lived most of his life in Britain. The author has won the British Science Fiction Award, the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the Nebula Award.

Ryman’s science fiction and fantasy books include The Warrior Who Carried Life, The Unconquered Country, The Child Garden, Was, Lust and Air . His 253, or Tube Theatre was initially published electronically before appearing in print, and his latest novel, The King’s Last Song , is set in Cambodia’s past and present.

“In 1975 I read a from-the-scene dispatch in The Times of the evacuation of Phnom Penh and that absolutely gripped my imagination,” remembers Ryman. “In 2000 I was invited by an Australian friend to stay at an Australian archaeological dig. Returning to do research, I fell in love with Cambodia all over again, and the way it was healing. I still haven’t managed to write about the healing, but two long short stories and one novel did follow.”

One of those long stories was “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)”, which was nominated for a science fiction Hugo Award. “Didn’t they realise it was a ghost story?” asks the author.

IN CAMBODIA PEOPLE ARE used to ghosts. Ghosts buy newspapers. They own property.

A few years ago, spirits owned a house in Phnom Penh, at the Tra Bek end of Monivong Boulevard. Khmer Rouge had murdered the whole family and there was no one left alive to inherit it. People cycled past the building, leaving it boarded up. Sounds of weeping came from inside.

Then a professional inheritor arrived from America. She’d done her research and could claim to be the last surviving relative of no fewer than three families. She immediately sold the house to a Chinese businessman, who turned the ground floor into a photocopying shop.