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

Away from the crowds, we face each other. I try to stop myself shaking. For some reason, the words won’t come.

“My boy,” he said with surprising gentleness. “They told me you were dying.” He read my face and added quickly, “Of course. You want answers.”

“I want to be saved.” My voice sounded so pathetic, like a child’s.

He rested a paternal hand on my shoulder. “I came to you to explain. Eventually I tracked down your friends too. For one I was too late. But I spoke to the Frenchman and the American before the end.”

“You killed them.”

“No. I tried to make amends.” He looked away to a plane slowly filling with people; desperate to get away , I thought. When he looked back, his eyes were filled with tears. “The Vietnamese have a legend, of vampirical beasts that feed on life itself. Their name translates, very roughly, as The Teeth of the Stars , but the myths only hint at their true nature. Not vampires as you or I would understand them. These things are bound into the very fabric of this reality . . . silent shadows moving behind a painted scenery.”

“They took Justin . . .” I gulped in air to stop myself shaking.

“They can remove a life from existence itself, so that not only does it not exist, it never existed, and never will exist.”

“Then how can I remember them?”

“Your injuries . . .” He shrugged; we both knew it didn’t matter.

“And you?”

He dipped into his jacket and removed the charm I’d found hanging from the doorway of the stone cell. “It keeps me safe, and lets me see the truth. These hung from all the chambers. The Viet Cong removed them when they found that place and freed what had been imprisoned within.”

I recall the reports of how Operation Cedar Falls had failed so badly, because once the US troops went into the Iron Triangle for the climactic battle they found no enemy. It was as if they had melted away, retreated long before the assault began. But I could see now that wasn’t true.

“When intelligence reported that something unbelievable and dangerous had been discovered by the Communists in the heart of the Iron Triangle it was decided to seize this potential weapon for the benefit of the West.”

“A weapon?” I said, dumbfounded. “Something with the kind of power that you’re talking about?”

“We are all for turning, given the right impetus,” he continued in a flat voice. “I am not a stupid man. Yet I am affected by the weaknesses that shape us all. Petty fears make idiots of even the wisest. I wanted to see order imposed on the world. With youth in open rebellion in our homelands, with the forces of chaos sweeping across East Asia, I was prepared to go to great lengths to hold back the tide.” He removed his glasses to wipe his eyes. “But I never realised there were others prepared to go to even greater lengths.”

Another glance at the plane on the runway, nearly full now. I wanted to hit him for his heartlessness and insensitivity.

“Yes, I helped them contain the power. I thought I was doing the right thing, you see? But the use of it, that was down to them. In the end, they only needed so much of me.” He took a deep juddering breath. “Did you know Kissinger planned to use nuclear weapons here? Can you imagine the loss of civilian life? Those things did not matter to the people I worked for. It was all about order, at any cost. Hard men.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t quite comprehend. “I heard what happened at Kent State University in America. What was happening all over in the name of order. Hard, hard men. They didn’t know how to direct the power. They had to learn to control it. They needed a test before time ran out here in Vietnam . . .”

Realisation dawned on me. We were the test.

“Once I learned what they planned, I attempted to stop it. Naturally, I became an unacceptable burden. I was forced to stay one step ahead.”

“You changed sides?”

“You are talking about politics. I am speaking about moral absolutes. I did not go over to the enemy . I experienced one of those moments when the white light shines into the deep, shadowed parts of oneself. I did not like what I saw. Sometimes there are worse things than an absence of order, as there are worse things than death.”

I eased a little. Perhaps there was hope after all. “So you’re going to kill it? Drive a stake through its heart or something.”

“It cannot be killed. It is part of the universe, beyond you or I or the things we see around us. It can be guided. A little. But not controlled how my former partners wanted to control it.”

The plane was now taxiing up the runway. I could see he hadn’t been anxious to get on board. He’d only come here to watch.

Van Diemen held up the mysterious charm once more. “The key,” he said with smile. “They used to have it . . . and now they do not. Soon those who wanted to do terrible things in the names of their politics will be gone. Indeed, they will never have existed. And the world will be a better place. Yes, Vietnam will be lost. But in the end, is that such a bad thing?”

He was right – there are worse things than failing to impose order. When you confront all the horrors thrown up by reality, all the great spiritual questions, the terrors of the never-ending night, politics seems faintly ridiculous. Who cares about this territory or that? Who cares about money and taxes? Moral absolutes, he said. Rules of existence that should never be transgressed.

“What about me?” I could see the answer in his eyes, had known from the moment I’d spoken to him.

“I am sorry,” he said. “Truly. There is no turning back what is set in motion. But know this: I will remember you. I will never forget.”

He holds out his arms and I collapse into them, crying silently for what is about to happen, for what I have lost. My tears are insubstantial, moisture-ghosts that will soon fade and be gone. Like the past. Like the present.

Like the future.

JOEL LANE

Mine

JOEL LANE IS THE AUTHOR of two collections of supernatural horror stories, The Earth Wire (Egerton Press) and The Lost District and Other Stories (Night Shade Books), as well as two novels, From Blue to Black and The Blue Mask (both Serpent’s Tail), and two collections of poems, The Edge of the Screen and Trouble in the Heartland (both Arc). He is currently working on a third novel, Midnight Blue .

“ ‘Mine’ was one of a batch of stories that I wrote for The Lost District ,” the author explains. “They all had to do with the myths surrounding death and the afterlife. One of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems influenced this story, which I’d been trying to write for years.

“I’ve been reassured by the amount of offence it has caused.”

NIGHT WAS FALLING as he found the place. He’d have liked to wait until dark, but there wasn’t time. He had a gig that evening. It was a ritual: the first night of every tour. Once that had meant small towns in the Black Country; now it meant cities scattered across Europe. But always, for him, it started with this visit. His songs needed it. His voice needed it. He supposed most punters told themselves something similar. And it was always the same time of year: late autumn, as the trees burnt themselves out like cigarettes and dropped traces of frost on the pavement.

It was the same in every town, in every inner-city district. A shuttered window with a sign above it, lit up so as to be visible from the road at night. Always on a main road, close to other shops: being discreet was less important than ease of parking and access. The front door open, leading to a short entry passage; then a hermetically sealed inner door with a bell. As Mark got out of the car, the fading daylight made the buildings seem older: a modern street became grey and close-built, like the terraces he’d grown up in. He shivered and pulled at the collar of his black jacket.