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

“Was it really so bad for them?” Kiara asked.

“Here? Worse. I haven’t told you the worst yet, you see. Indeed, I haven’t even touched upon it.” The horror writer turned to Dan. “Perhaps you’d like to send Robbie out. That might be advisable.”

Dan shrugged. “He watches TV. I doubt that anything you’ll say will frighten him.”

Charity pursed her lips but said nothing.

The horror writer had taken advantage of the pause to light his pipe. “You don’t have to stay, Robbie.” He puffed fragrant white smoke, and watched it begin its slow climb to the ceiling. “You know where your room is, and you may go anywhere in the house unless you meet with a locked door.”

Kiara smiled. “Secrets! We’re in Bluebeard’s cashel – castle. I knew it!”

“No secrets,” the horror writer told her, “just a very dangerous cellar stair – steep, shaky, and innocent of any sort of railing.”

Robbie whispered, “I’m not going.”

“So I see. From time to time, Robbie, one of the children would learn or guess that his parents were not in fact dead. When that happened, he or she might try to get away and return home. I’ve made every effort to learn just how often that happened, but the sources are contradictory on the point. Some say three and some five, and one says more than twenty. I should add that we who perform this type of research soon learn to be wary of the number three. It’s the favorite of those who don’t know the real number. There are several places on the grounds that may once of have been graves – unmarked graves long since emptied by the authorities. But . . .”

Charity leaned toward him, her face tense. “Do you mean to say that those children were killed?”

The horror writer nodded. “I do. Those who were returned here by their parents were. That is the most horrible fact attached to this really quite awful old house. Or at least, it is the worst we know of – perhaps the worst that occurred.”

He drew on his pipe, letting smoke trickle from his nostrils. “A special midnight service was held here, in this room in which we sit. At that service the church members are said to have flown. To have fluttered about this room like so many strange birds. No doubt they ran and waved their arms, as children sometimes do. Very possibly they thought they flew. The members of medieval witch cults seem really to have believed that they flew to the gatherings of their covens, although no sane person supposes they actually did.”

Charity asked, “But you say they killed the children?”

The horror writer nodded. “Yes, at the end of the ceremony. Call it the children’s hour, a term that some authorities say they used themselves. They shot them as Maude Parkhurst’s father and sisters had been shot. The executioner was chosen by lot. Maude is said to have hoped aloud that it would fall to her, as it seems to have done more than once. Twice at least.”

Dan said, “It’s hard to believe anybody would really do that.”

“Perhaps it is, although news broadcasts have told me of things every bit as bad. Or worse.”

The horror writer drew on his pipe again, and the room had grown dark enough that the red glow from its bowl lit his face from below. “The children were asleep by that time, as Maude, her father, and her sisters had been. The lucky winner crept into the child’s bedroom, accompanied by at least one other member who carried a candle. The moment the shot was fired, the candle was blown out. The noise would’ve awakened any other children who had been sleeping in that room, of course; but they awakened only to darkness and the smell of gun smoke.”

Dan said, “Angels!” There was a world of contempt in the word.

“There are angels in Hell,” the horror writer told him, “not just in Heaven. Indeed, the angels of Hell may be the more numerous.”

Charity pretended to yawn while nodding her reluctant agreement. “I think it’s time we all went up bed. Don’t you?”

Dan said, “I certainly do. I drove one hell of a long way today.”

Kiara lingered when the others had gone. “Ish really nice meeting you.” She swayed as she spoke, though only slightly. “Don’ forget I get to be your public relations agent. You promished.”

“You have my word.” The horror writer smiled, knowing how much his word was worth.

For a lingering moment they clasped hands. “Ish hard to believe,” she said, “that you were dad’s roommate. You sheem – seem – so much younger.”

He thanked her and watched her climb the wide curved staircase that had been the pride of the Parkhursts long ago, wondering all the while whether she knew that he was watching. Whether she knew or not, watching Kiara climb stairs was too great a pleasure to surrender.

On the floor above, Charity was getting Robbie ready for bed. “You’re a brave boy, I know. Aren’t you a brave boy, darling? Say it, please. It always helps to say it.”

“I’m a brave boy,” Robbie told her dutifully.

“You are. I know you are. You won’t let that silly man downstairs fool you. You’ll stay in your own bed, in your own room, and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll do some sight-seeing tomorrow, forests and lakes and rugged hills where the worked-out mines hide.”

Charity hesitated, gnawing with small white teeth at her full lower lip. “There’s no nightlight in here, I’m afraid, but I’ve got a little flashlight in my purse. I could lend you that. Would you like it?”

Robbie nodded, and clasped Charity’s little plastic flashlight tightly as he watched her leave. Her hand – the one without rings – reached up to the light switch. Her fingers found it.

There was darkness.

He located the switch again with the watery beam of the disposable flashlight, knowing that he would be scolded (perhaps even spanked) if he switched the solitary overhead light back on but wanting to know exactly where that switch was, just in case.

At last he turned Charity’s flashlight off and lay down. It was hot in the too-large, too-empty room. Hot and silent.

He sat up again, and aimed the flashlight toward the window. It was indeed open, but open only the width of his hand. He got out of bed, dropped the flashlight into the shirt pocket of his pajamas, and tried to raise the window farther. No effort he could put forth would budge it.

At last he lay down again, and the room felt hotter than ever.

When he had looked out through the window, it had seemed terribly high. How many flights of stairs had they climbed to get up here? He could remember only one, wide carpeted stairs that had curved as they climbed; but that one had been a long, long stair. From the window he had seen the tops of trees.

Treetops and stars. The moon had been out, lighting the lawn below and showing him the dark leaves of the treetops, although the moon itself had not been in sight from the window.

“It walks across the sky,” he told himself. Dan, his father, had said that once.

“You could walk . . .” The voice seemed near, but faint and thin.

Robbie switched the flashlight back on. There was no one there.

Under the bed, he thought. They’re under the bed.

But he dared not leave the bed to look, and lay down once more. An older person would have tried to persuade himself that he had imagined the voice, or would have left the bed to investigate. Robbie did neither. His line between palpable and imagined things was blurred and faint, and he had not the slightest desire to see the speaker, whether that speaker was real or make-believe.

There were no other windows that might be opened. He thought of going out. The hall would be dark, but Dan and Charity were sleeping in a room not very far away. The door of their room might be locked, though. They did that sometimes.