The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories Page 8

  So he was the last one, then. He thought about going back to New York only briefly. Memories of that basement with its spinning phénakisticopes quickly snubbed out the notion, and he decided he was far enough away already. Not like there was really such thing as a “far enough” from fate anyway.

  He fell in with the local community quickly enough, and took a part-time job as a scuba instructor to supplement the slowly dwindling inheritance from his mom and dad. Every day he spent out on the water, he wondered if this was where he would die. If, somewhere across the world, someone was spinning a disk with his image on it. If they saw him devoured by sharks, or getting in a boating accident, or drowning.

  Once, in a café in Bangkok, he thought he saw Takiyah through the window. It was monsoon season, and she was the only person out on the street, walking through the downpour as if she didn’t notice it. She glanced back through the window at him, and he thought there was a hint of recognition, a sense of fear. She ran from view, and by the time he threw some money onto the table and hurried out into the street, she was gone.

  He smoked a stale Marlboro knockoff under the café awning, and listened to the rain. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of a motorbike revving its engine, the squeal of tires, and a collision. He threw his cigarette, burned down all too quickly, out into the water streaming through the cracks in the road.

  He wondered if Takiyah, despite escaping the fate of rotting in that basement, had found herself trapped in an image foretold, in a glitch of repetition, a cycle of collision, always trying to ride away and survive, always crashing, always dying, and doing it all again. Stuck in a loop, stuck in a foreign land, spinning around and around and around and… .

  MEMORIES OF DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

  NANCY KILPATRICK

  Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published more than twenty novels, seven collections of stories, and fifteen anthologies. Recent short fiction has appeared in such volumes as Nightmare’s Realm, Black Wings V and VI, Searchers After Horror, The Darke Phantastique, Zombie Apocalypse: Endgame!, The Madness of Cthulhu 2, and Innsmouth Nightmares. The graphic novel Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampyre Theater was based on her work, and her story “Heart of Stone” was adapted for another graphic collection, Tales from the Acker-Mansion.

  Thrones of Blood, her new six-novel series from Crossroad Press, so far comprises Revenge of the Vampir King, Sacrifice of the Hybrid Princess, and Abduction of Two Rulers, while a new collection of her short stories is forthcoming from Hippocampus Press.

  “‘Memories of Día de los Muertos’ was written from a dream I had almost thirty years ago,” she reveals. “I awoke, knowing nothing at that time about the Mexican Day of the Dead, and sat down at my computer. This story came out of me full-blown, and I think I subsequently changed only two words.

  “Years later, when I visited Mexico for the celebrations over November 1st and 2nd, I was astonished that so much of what I’d written was a reality during these colorful, annual events where people connect with their ancestors.

  “Several Spanish teachers have used this story in their classroom to give students a taste of what the holiday is about. I’ve always loved this story because it feels like it came to me as a gift.”

  YOU CALL ME “death-bringer,” as though ancient words can wound me. When I was mortal, as you are still, that name filled me with loathing. Now, because I live forever, because I have seen your grandparents rot and will watch los gusanos devour your children, your words fade like the ghosts of memories.

  This eve of the Day of the Dead—my day, although you do not yet realize there are many ways to be dead—I watch you enter the cemetery just after sunset. The crude wooden crosses as well as those of fine marble are draped with fragrant bougainvillea and gardenia, and you add your flowers to the stones you stop beside. I see your wife spread a colorful blanket over the graves of your ancestors and open jars and boxes for the long night of sharing. A night when the dead will consume the spirit of the food you offer. Food you expect to devour.

  Your son and two daughters pulse with life. Life I no longer possess. They skip along the dusty paths eating sugar skulls and clutching papier-mâché skeletons until the sky blackens and the few fires scattered throughout the graveyard become the only light under a moonless sky. The children fall silent and huddle near you, fearful, expectant. You tell them a story. Of how the dead, on this day, return to converse with the living. To fulfil promises and offer guidance. To bring good fortune. As you strum your guitar and sing a song, your eyes are sad and fearful. Years have passed since you have visited the dead. Few still come here to spend the night.

  By the flickering embers you stare at the worn oval photograph of your mother and imagine her returning. You want this, yet fear it. To speak with her again, to feel her bless you and the ones you love… .

  Your son and daughters have fallen asleep. Your wife is drowsy. She leans back and closes her eyes, her long black hair and the crucifix she wears falling away from her throat. You are alone.

  Outside the cemetery walls the mariachi band has stopped playing. A cool wind caresses you, blowing hair up the back of your head, exposing your neck. You shiver. I laugh, and you turn abruptly at the sound. Familiar. Alien. Darkness presses in on you and the dead beneath you struggle to call a warning, but their voices were silenced long ago by the worms. You look again to the picture of your mother, then to the sky, and cross yourself, sensing she can no longer help you.

  Something flies through the night air, beyond the illumination of the fire. A bat, you hope. Wings flap and you listen as though to a voice. The tequila bottle is less than half full; you take another swallow and I can see you are wondering how you will endure this night.

  Once, long ago, when your ancestors and I walked in daylight together, I sat where you sit now. Honoring the dead. Singing sad and joyous songs to them. Telling their tales of grief and bitterness and of how they loved. Of how they lived, and died. Memories stir in me like petals rustled by a breeze.

  At last you see me, a shadow among shadows. The guitar slips from your hands. I have come for you. Your eyes are red-rimmed with the knowledge. You plead. Your wife, you say, and your children. There are things you have not yet done. You beg me to spare you until morning, imagining I do not know my powers will wane with the sun. I laugh as tears spill down your weathered face. I am incapable of pity. When I reach out to stroke your cheek, to feel the warmth pushing against your flesh, salty wetness coats my dead fingers. Astonished, I remember.

  On a Day of the Dead such as this, when I sat where you sit now, my loved ones beside me, music floating on the cool breezes drifting down from the mountains, I, too, wept. My vulnerable tears betrayed me then, as yours betray you now. My tears did not save me.

  What warms your body will soon warm mine. I nod at the boy child, the youngest. A substitute. You decline, as I knew you must. I do not see this as heroism or bravery, simply what you would do.

  You turn to the picture of your mother. She will intercede, you think. You pray to her. To anyone. A small iguana springs onto the tombstone next to the melting candle you have placed there. He pauses to stare at you; he is a sign, you believe, good or ill, how can you be certain? I step into the firelight. Neither the dead nor the living can help you now.

  “Why?” you ask me. This question I have heard many times over the years. Many times. It is a question for which there is no answer. Your life does not mean to me what it means to you. I feel no love or sympathy, no pity; I no longer understand remorse. All I can tell you is that I long for your hot blood to swirl through my cold body. Your eyes are the only reflection I am capable of seeing and in them I find myself as I once was but am no longer. This image cannot sway me. What I need I must have.

  You suddenly understand a horror that all your life you have avoided. You find this incomprehensible: dead exist to whom you mean nothing. And yet even you must know that blood is all that matters on this day when los muertos are honored.
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  Across the graveyard another calls his ghosts and I listen, intrigued by the bittersweet song. The night is long; there are many here with offerings. Many. To one such as myself, all are equal.

  Before I turn away, I glimpse disbelief in your eyes. Gratitude. You cross yourself and fall on your knees before your mother. Before me.

  I drift between the worn stones toward new warmth. You are a memory already fading. A memory that will die. A memory of the dead.

  FRAGILE MASKS

  RICHARD GAVIN

  Richard Gavin’s fiction is described as “exploring the realm where fear and the sublime intersect.” His horror stories have been collected in five volumes, including At Fear’s Altar and Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness, and have been selected for several volumes of the annual Best New Horror anthology. The author has also published numerous works of esoteric nonfiction.

  “The impetus for ‘Fragile Masks’ was my desire to write a contemporary story that conveyed the timeless undercurrent of Halloween,” explains Gavin, “yet did not rely on the holiday’s familiar modern tropes (children trick-or-treating along leaf-carpeted streets, etc.). Mine needed to be an adult tale, in part because I wanted characters who could not dispel their glimpse through Samhain’s thinned veil as simply childish imaginings.

  “There is a rarefied atmosphere that arises whenever one is in the proximity of an authentic spirit, and it is not at all like the foggy, half-realized images of reverie. It is a sheer mental clarity, an overwhelming awareness of some ineffable form whose presence eclipses conventional logic.

  “I believe that the finest ghost stories can evoke something of this sensation.”

  “WOOLF.”

  The word caused Paige to flinch in the passenger seat. She scanned the leaf-carpeted banks of the road, looking for signs of movement.

  “It was Virginia Woolf who took her life that way, not Brontë,” Jon explained, “my mistake. Wait, did you think I saw an actual… .”

  “You gave me a start,” she said brusquely.

  Jon’s mouth hitched into a grin, which made him look more pained than amused. “Maybe you have some Halloween spirit after all.”

  Paige made a noise with her throat then stared out at the drabness that surrounded them. The road was all clay and ugly stones, and the trees that flanked it had lost their foliage. They passed a pumpkin patch, a cornfield, both of which had been gleaned of their growth. Even the sunlight was filtered through strips of gray clouds that reduced it to a vague glimmer, the way the features of the dead grow indistinct beneath the shroud.

  “Any of this look familiar?” asked Jon.

  “The country all looks the same to me.”

  “Oh. Well, according to my phone we’re less than three miles from the bed-and-breakfast.”

  The final bend was riddled with potholes, forcing Jon to slow the car to a crawl. The phone app instructed him to turn left.

  “Hmm,” he muttered, “that doesn’t seem correct.”

  “Why not?”

  “Take a look down there, honey. That lane looks like a footpath. I doubt I could even get the car down there without getting the sides all scratched up by those trees. I’d hate to damage my new present.” He patted the dashboard gently, then touched Paige’s hair. “I know you said these places all look the same to you, but do you remember turning down a little lane like this when you were last here?”

  “Teddy and I didn’t stay at this particular place,” Paige explained, “but it was near here.”

  Jon rubbed the back of his neck. The rush of blood had made him feel hot. “Teddy. …” he mumbled, though not so softly as to go unheard.

  She reached to the steering wheel, placed her hand over his. “This can be our place.”

  They made the turn.

  He’d been correct about the narrowness of the lane but had underestimated its length, for by the time they came upon the white two-story house the main road was no longer visible. It was obvious that the photos they’d seen of the establishment online had been taken in fairer weather and during better times. The sloping lawn that had appeared so rich and manicured was now a sparse, brownish mat, interspersed with mud puddles and a broken stone birdbath. Jon did his best to mask his feelings of having been swindled.

  “I guess we just park over there.” He indicated an ovular patch of the yard that was inlaid with white gravel. They drove up alongside the beige jeep that was parked there, and Jon switched off the engine.

  He gave the car, which Paige had given him as a spontaneous gift over the summer, an inspection for scratches.

  “The paint is fine,” said Paige.

  Jon nodded, collected their bags. The only detail that distinguished the house as a business was a small placard beside the doorframe: GUESTS—PLEASE RING DOORBELL FOR SERVICE.

  “This doesn’t look very… .”

  “Very what?” Paige asked.

  Jon shrugged. “All I mean is, you can afford to holiday in places much nicer than this.”

  “I think it’s perfect.”

  Paige obeyed the sign and pressed the button. They stood in wait on the covered porch and Jon whispered to her that he hoped they would have enough privacy.

  The woman who drew back the inner door was genial, energetic, and, Jon felt, very well put together for someone her age. Her hair, obviously dyed, was the color of rusted tin. She extended her hand, introduced herself as Imogene, and then plucked both suitcases from Jon’s hands.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” he said.

  “Nonsense,” replied Imogene, “come, come.”

  The couple followed the wake of perfume that smelled of clean linen. Imogene led them to a handsome Edwardian desk and bade them to sit. Stationing herself behind the desk, she deftly collected file folders and confirmed the details of their stay.

  “Just one night it is then?”

  “Yes,” Paige said.

  “It’s refreshing to have guests here on a Tuesday, especially during the off-season. Both of my rooms are booked for tonight in fact. Are you here for the Halloween Ball over in Durham?”

  “There’s a Ball?” Jon asked.

  At this same instant Paige uttered, “No.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” said Imogene. “The other couple that’s here said they’re not going either. You really should reconsider. It’s a good deal of fun. I’m going there myself after supper tonight. You did know that here we offer both dinner and breakfast to all guests?”

  “Yes, that’s excellent, thank you,” said Paige.

  “Can I ask if that scent from the kitchen is tonight’s dinner?” Jon said.

  “It is—Irish stew and homemade bread.”

  “Good Celtic faire. That’s fitting.”

  Imogene looked confused.

  Jon felt himself blushing. “Halloween … it was a Celtic holiday … way back, I mean.”

  “A fountain of information, this one,” she said, winking at Paige.

  They signed the registration forms and were shown to their room, which was slight but stylish.

  “The tub is really something,” Paige said as she emerged from the washroom, “I could practically swim in it.” She found Jon standing between the bed and the nightstand. He had a finger pressed to his mouth. Warbled voices, one deep and the other bright, were audible from the adjoining room.

  “Just as I’d feared,” grumbled Jon as he maneuvered out of the awkward space. “These walls are like tissue paper. We’ll not have any privacy at all. I can practically hear them breathing next door.”

  “Well there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  “I suppose. Why don’t we go for a walk before dinner?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  The woman beyond the wall laughed shrilly.

  Jon sighed. “What would you like to do?”

  “I think I’m going to soak in that tub for a while.”

  He was hoping for some indication that Paige wanted company. When none came, he proc
eeded to unpack and then went to appreciate the view, such as it was, from the upper story window. The landscape that surrounded them looked as dull as the piled clouds. Their room was facing the lane. Even from this higher vantage, the main road remained obscured by bends in the lane and by the unkempt verge.

  “Pretty?”

  Paige’s voice startled him. He spun around and asked, “How was your bath?”

  “Lovely, but now I’m famished. I’ll get dressed and we can go downstairs.”

  Soon after, they were about to venture down when Paige decided to change shoes. While Jon was waiting in the hallway, the other couple emerged from their room. Jon experienced a pang of social anxiety. The three of them nodded and offered vague greetings.

  The other man then said, “Hello, Paige.”

  Jon snapped his head back to the doorway of his room.

  “Teddy.”

  “Did you say?” Jon uttered hoarsely.

  “I’d like you to meet Alicia, my fiancée. Alicia, this is Paige and … ?”

  Jon shook hands but did not think to introduce himself. The four of them casually forged a circle. Three of them conversed. Jon, however, scarcely spoke and heard even less of the discussion. His brain was oscillating between disbelief and rage.

  “Well,” Teddy said, checking his watch, “shall we go down?”

  He wrapped his arm around Alicia’s waist and the two of them descended the stairs. Paige was about to follow when Jon gripped her wrist.

  “I need to talk to you,” he rasped. “In here.” He opened the door to their room. Paige was reluctant to close it once she saw the expression on her lover’s face. “What do you take me for?”

  “I’m sorry?” she said.

  “Is this your idea of a sick joke, dragging me here to spend the night with your ex-husband? What, are you two comparing your new paramours?”