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

He had assumed the whispering to be a prayer, or an attempt by the child to find its voice, but now that he was close enough to hear it clearly he realised it was neither. What the child was whispering were the words that it, or some other child, had wailed in abject terror down the phone in the square at him. “ Nodaddynodaddynopleasedon’tpleasestopdaddynopleaseno .”

It was as though, by repeating the words, the child was giving them the power of an incantation, was mocking or damning him with them. Meacher felt anger, or more than anger, boiling inside him and he took two further steps across the room. It was only at this point, some six or eight feet from the child, that the scant light finally enabled him to make out particular details that had been denied him from further away. It was these details that caused the strength to drain from his legs so abruptly that he thumped forward on to his knees.

The child did not have its back to the wall at all; it was facing the wall, presenting its back, almost insolently, to him. Furthermore, like the mannequins, like his pursuers, like the statue in the square, it was wearing a bag over its head.

It was the sight of the bag – black plastic wound round with masking tape – that triggered the memories in Meacher’s mind. Now, finally, he was beginning to realise why he was here. He held out his hands in supplication.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please . Have mercy.”

Slowly the child turned to face him. “ Nodaddynodaddynoplease don’t – pleasestopdaddynopleaseno ,” it whispered.

As though relishing the moment, the child raised its hands, its fingertips resting on the black plastic, making it crackle. Then, still whispering, it hooked its fingers into the plastic and began to tear the bag from its face.

LYNDA E. RUCKER

The Last Reel

LYNDA E. RUCKER WAS BORN in Birmingham, Alabama, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, but will be packing it in shortly to go vagabonding around other parts of the world, for as long as those other parts of the world will have her.

In the last few years she has taken time off from writing fiction to pursue a graduate degree and, as an inexplicable result, has several stories scheduled to appear this year.

Her fiction has been, or will be, published in The Third Alternative, Black Static and Supernatural Tales , among other periodicals. This is her second appearance in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror .

“This story came from two places,” she reveals: “an imagined dialogue – which practically wrote itself – between a film lover and his girlfriend playing a silly game (and friends who read this commented that I seemed to have written a story in which my partner was the main character); and my grandmother’s house in rural Georgia, which I found spooky as a child.

“I once dreamed a witch lived behind that house – and to this day, as it falls further into dereliction and collapses into the woods surrounding it, it still feels like a terrifying, magical place to me.”

“WAIT A MINUTE,” Sophie said, “give me a clue, I know this one.”

“If you know it, you don’t need a clue, do you?” Kevin lit another cigarette and sank back against the seat.

She shot him a look. “Watch the road,” he cautioned, and she reached over to punch him in the shoulder.

“Smartass,” she said.

He sang softly, in a deep false bass. “Seven, seven, seven . . .”

“ The Magnificent Seven ,” she finished for him. “I said give me a clue, not give it away.”

“Well, if you didn’t get the Seven Samurai reference what could I—”

Sophie hit the brakes. The car slewed to the right and skidded to a stop.

“That was the turn back there,” she said. “Way to go, navigator.”

“I know that one. Kiwi film about Black Death victims who time-travel to modern-day New Zealand. And there was a Buster Keaton flick with the same name. Either way, I am trouncing your ass!”

“That wasn’t part of the game. Could you stop being a movie geek for five damn minutes?” Sophie asked rhetorically, dragging the gear stick into reverse.

“I’m a film critic. I know no other way.”

“Well, next time we’ll play some kind of – of cooking game or something and I will trounce your ass, as you so elegantly put it.”

“A cooking game? Food geek.”

“At least we eat well. You guys would live on popcorn and Junior Mints if it wasn’t for people like me.”

The missed turn was unsignposted and, he noted, not visible until you were upon it and saw the break in the trees and brush that grew right to the edge of the highway. He decided not to mount a self-defense at that particular moment.

“Great,” Sophie murmured moments later as they bumped up the narrow gravel lane, rocks popping ominously against the underside of the car, branches scraping at the sides. “I wonder if the rental company has a ‘back of beyond’ clause absolving us from damages incurred in the actual middle of nowhere . . .”

She trailed off as they rounded a bend and the house was before them, all at once. It lurked in a clearing where all the grass had died and been dug up by the six dogs Sophie’s Aunt Rose had kept. According to the animal control people they were all feral, and had to be destroyed.

The house itself was low and dark, all blank windows and weathered boards the color of old dishwater.

Kevin said, “It’s haunted, right? I mean, it would have to be. Jesus, what a dump.” He hated the way his voice went up at the end, losing control a little bit like the sight of the house had really shaken him. “Jesus,” he said again.

“Well. It’s not like we have to spend the night here or anything.” Sophie was brisk, the way she always got when something made her uneasy.

“ House on Haunted Hill ,” he said.

“What?”

“William Castle feature. Vincent Price offers ten thousand dollars to whoever will spend the entire night in a haunted house.”

“Ah, but ten thousand dollars doesn’t go nearly as far as it did back in those days, even if having Mr Vincent Price do the offering makes it a little more attractive. Did they up the going price in the remake?”

“In the what?”

“The remake.”

“Blasphemer!” he said.

“Race you!” she answered. She was out the door before he knew it, her sandals clattering on the steps when he was only halfway across the yard.

“No fair,” he said, “you tricked me.” They were both laughing until she turned round to face the house, when it suddenly seemed rude to display too much levity as they prepared to survey the meager estate of poor deceased Aunt Rose.

Sophie’s key stuck in the front door, and for a moment he hoped it wouldn’tworkatall, butthenthelockturnedeasily.Thedarkspilledout.

They crossed the threshold into a foyer smelling of mold, and stale with the heat of a hot September day. Just a few feet ahead he could make out monstrous shapes that were revealed, once Sophie touched the light switch, to be a coat-rack bearing numerous heavy coats, and a hulking wardrobe. The hallway was short, a few steps across the worn grey carpet carrying him to the end.

Sophie had shown him photos late last night at her mother’s condo back in Atlanta, the mutilated snapshots with sister Rose snipped from every one. It struck him as cruel and excessive, the way family interactions so often do to anyone on the outside, the story behind it all – for there always is one – too convoluted and painful to ever be properly recalled or recounted by the perceived injured party. You have no idea what she did to me, you can’t understand, you see she always .