Black Static Horror Magazine #2 Read online

Even so, though he felt another stirring of passion that night as he watched her undress, it quickly faded and died. He told himself the problem was too much light. Cara's bedroom was never truly dark, owing to a hall-light she left turned on for her father's sake, and to the streetlights that sent their sickly yellowish glow through the filmy curtains and cast unnerving shadows on the wall. He suspected, however, Cara's dull passivity was the real cause of his impotence. She seemed both slow and skittish, reluctant to touch him, and when at last he tried to direct her, the result was even worse. He could not enjoy what he could only think of as masturbation by proxy.

  Still, with fingertips and lips, he managed to bring her to orgasm. She shuddered and cried out softly and then lay very still in his embrace. He listened as her breathing slowed; he fancied he heard the slowing beat of her heart as well.

  Finally, she said, “Heath, that was beautiful."

  He could think of nothing to say except, “I'm glad you liked it.” After a moment he added, “It was beautiful."

  "But what about you?” She touched him hopefully. He felt nothing, not the least tremor of arousal.

  "Never mind me."

  "Heath, I want to make you happy."

  "I know, and you do,” he told her, “you do make me happy,” and hated himself for lying.

  They said no more, only held each other, drifting into sleep. He awoke in the unmoving depth of the night and looked for the little painted Swiss clock that Cara always kept on her bedside table. Its glowing dial faced away from him; he picked up the clock and turned it and held it to his ear. It was silent, inert. He returned it to the bedside table and lay staring at the pattern of shadow on the bedroom wall, listening to nothing, thinking about the sleeping woman at his side, with her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder.

  Then he found himself thinking about the other Cara, the one he had known in the hole. How had her imagined touch aroused him so incredibly, when the real woman, using her mouth and hands as he taught her, could not? What was wrong with him? He lay awake almost until dawn, worrying and wondering.

  On the second day, he walked around the house, noting jobs that needed doing. Then, without telling Cara or even thinking to tell her, he set off for a long walk around the town and did not return until late afternoon. He found her in the kitchen, preparing her father's dinner tray.

  "Where have you been?” she demanded.

  "I went searching for old landmarks,” he told her. “I didn't find many. In fact, at one point I started wondering if I'd ever actually lived in this place before."

  "That's ridiculous. Of course you did."

  "Cara, more than half the houses I passed looked like nobody lives in them. Many were uninhabitable. There's a house at the end of this street with only half its roof. Its ceiling's caved in, too. I could see, through the dirty windows, the shadow of rafters cast on an inside wall. Other houses I saw had charred walls, broken, sagging roof beams, empty windows, missing doors. And everything overgrown, vines, fallen limbs of trees.” He hesitated, groped for words. “Disappearing into wilderness. Here and there I passed a lot covered in rubble, as if the house that'd been there just burst apart under the impact of an immense fist. Further on, the same fist must've ploughed through the cemetery. I think some graves are broken open there—I couldn't bring myself to look too closely. And feral, starving cats, prowling everywhere, skittering away when I looked at them. Cara, what happened here?"

  He saw emotions flowing across her face like a speeded-up history of grief: flat denial gave way to fury at his lies, then she reluctantly conceded that some of it might be so, yet haggling over the details, then sinking into abject misery, before, finally, achieving a sad acceptance of the truth.

  "Terrible things,” she said softly. “While the war was going on over there—your war—awful things happened here, too. But that's all past now."

  "What happened?"

  "There's no point talking about it.” Her voice grew stronger. “It's wrong to brood on what we can't change—it's harmful. It only makes things worse. You should just remember the good things. That's what I do. And look what happened! You came back. And now we can have the rest of our lives together."

  "But, Cara—"

  "Heath!"

  And so he let it pass.

  That night, their second together, she kissed him determinedly, almost savagely, and ground herself against him, forcing him to respond. It was what he had thought he wanted from her, this passionate attack, and finally it did arouse him. He managed to sustain an erection long enough to enter her and move himself to a mechanical climax.

  She clung to him afterward, refused to let him move off her while, within her, he went soft and shrank and crept away, it occurred to him, as though in disgrace. He supported himself on his elbows and lowered his head to blow a cool stream of air into the hollow between her sweat-slicked breasts. She murmured with pleasure. It was, he thought, the single honest moment of the evening. When she spoke, Heath cringed at the sheer inane repetition of avowals of love even as he found himself helpless to respond otherwise. He could think of nothing meaningful to say, and as Cara, with excruciating forced brightness, began to speak of their wonderful, shared future, he reflected bleakly that though now neither of them was, technically, a virgin, nothing fundamental had changed. He suspected that, for all her hopeful, loving words, Cara found him no more satisfactory a lover than he found her.

  Lying next to her, half-listening as she spoke of destinies entwined, lives inextricably bound together by love, he felt shamed by his estrangement from this girl whom he had loved in solitude for so long.

  When she paused, waiting for his answer to some question he had not heard, he said, painfully, the words bruising his throat and bringing tears to his eyes, “Cara, this doesn't—none of this seems real. I feel like—I feel like a ghost in my own life."

  After a long moment's consideration, she asked, “How does a ghost feel?"

  After another long moment, he answered, “Ghosts move among the living and believe that they, too, are still living. But they're not."

  "Heath, you're not dead. You're alive.” She squeezed his hand, and though he was aware of the pressure, he knew he did not feel her touch the way he should, the way he would have in the past.

  "People don't have to be dead to be ghosts.” He tried to explain a truth he only dimly sensed. “Maybe they only have to be out of step with their surroundings. It's very confusing..."

  "Oh, Heath.” She sighed. “You think too much. Can't you just accept things as they are?"

  "I don't know. I honestly don't. What things? How are they? This war—"

  "The war's over."

  "Is it?"

  "Of course! Would you be here, would we be here like this if it wasn't?"

  "Maybe—why not? I don't think it's really over. And maybe it's not just me. Maybe we're all ghosts."

  "We're not any of us ghosts. We're two people who love each other. Why is that so hard for you to accept? We have a future to build for ourselves. It may be hard work, but it's worth it to both of us, isn't it?"

  Puttering around this house, he wanted to say, and taking care of the yard can never be a full-time occupation for me, but he did not say it, as he did not say many other things.

  It fell to Cara to say things.

  By late the next afternoon it occurred to him that she had spent much of their third day together not exactly complaining but certainly bringing to his notice things she did not like: his failure to notice what needed to be done, his silence, his lack of appreciation, his air of bewilderment. When, however, he stood up for himself she became indignant: it was because she loved him that she told him when he did something wrong; if she cared less, she would not bother; when two people loved each other, communication was the most important thing—he must agree!

  After that, he could not tell her how her ceaseless talk sawed across his nerves. Adding to his discomfort was her father's fearful fury: at dinnertime, the old man c
lumsily knocked away the tray, scattering bread and beans on the carpet. Then, as Cara knelt to clean up the mess he screeched at her, somehow conveying the accusation that the two of them were paying a trick on him. Heath retreated, unable to blame the old man for his mistrust, only too aware of himself playing a part, pretending to be somebody who no longer existed. He went outside and stood under the tree carved with heath loves cara forever.

  That night, because she felt it important that they talk about their lovemaking, he described several scenes he recalled from X-rated films, presenting them as his own fantasies. He got her to act out one scenario, and she proved gratifyingly eager to do as instructed. At least, he knew he ought to have found it gratifying, but, as before, every word he spoke and every act she performed at his command served only to deal his libido another bruising blow. He felt like some dirty-minded puppeteer and knew that if she ever again did exactly anything he suggested, ostensibly of her own accord, he would be too aware of his own impatient, flat, whispering voice to enjoy it.

  I ask for too much, he thought. In the hole, with his life stripped down to mere survival, physical wants were basic: the feel of sunlight on his skin, clean water, enough food to fill his belly, the chance to stand upright and walk around. Now he took all those things for granted, and this beautiful, loving woman could not satisfy him. Nor could he shake the feeling that, whatever she might say, he disappointed her as much as she disappointed him.

  After Cara fell asleep, he rolled away from her and out of bed and padded quietly down the hall to the bathroom. He meant only to relieve himself without disturbing anyone, and he could see well enough by the hall light. He let the door fall quietly shut behind him, and darkness enclosed him—not total, but the nearest thing to complete darkness he had known since the hole.

  For a moment it threw him back to an earlier time; the last few days became no more than a particularly vivid, extended dream. Then, as his eyes adjusted he saw a thin line of light marking out the bottom of the door, and he breathed again in this world. Although naked, his skin was clean, still smelling of the soap and deodorant he had used earlier in the day, and he was in Cara's house, and darkness not forced on him held no terrors, only a promise. He sank to the softly carpeted floor, and waited as he had waited before, and she did not disappoint him. When he opened his arms, she came into them as ready and eager, hungry and passionate, as she had ever been before, her lips and tongue going everywhere her fingers explored, and with a groan of pleasure, a cry of relief he could not stifle, he fell back...

  The light was everywhere, dazzling, almost as shattering as Cara's shriek.

  Was it disgust that made her scream, or jealousy? What had she seen, exactly, when she opened the bathroom door?

  She would not say. For once, though he implored her, she refused to speak. It was a natural urge, he told her, you were asleep, I was alone, it wasn't like I cheated on you, I've never loved, never even really lusted after, anyone but you. Please, can't we talk about this?

  Pale, rigid, she stood with her face averted, as though she could no longer bear the sight of him, and told him to take a shower and get dressed. When he emerged from the bathroom, she had his bag packed. Dawn was just breaking when she all but pushed him out the front door.

  He stumbled along the strange, familiar street. In all the town, it seemed, he alone stirred. Too early to be going to work, he supposed. Then he stopped, disoriented, wondering if he had come the wrong way. Near the end of the street, at the edge of a driveway, a bird stood with its ashy back turned toward him, like some sort of vulture but impossibly large, bigger than anything he had ever seen outside a zoo. It pecked and worried at something that looked like a big, lumpy bag of garbage.

  Heath gave a little cry of astonishment and turned away from the horror. Not real, he thought, not real. Nothing here is very real except...

  In turning, he found himself facing in the direction he had just come. He could still see Cara's house though it appeared to rest on the rim of a jumbled horizon. He closed his eyes and dropped his suitcase and his hands balled into fists as the wrongness of everything assaulted him. It's not fair. He took a step, and another. After all I've been through, she can't just throw me out like this, reject me because I had one brief moment of pleasure away from her. He kept his head down, ignoring everything around him, concentrating on walking, on getting back to Cara. She wanted to talk; very well, he would make her listen. And then, he hoped, they could start again, and love each other, more honestly this time.

  It was early morning by now, and though Cara's street was still weirdly quiet, he sensed human activity going on somewhere, though he could not tell if it was near by or far away. A door opened and closed, an automobile engine wheezed asthmatically. He risked a glance over his shoulder, saw people behind him, moving purposefully, going about their unimaginable business, ignoring or perhaps simply oblivious to the creature feasting at the end of the street.

  Just as when he had first arrived, Heath headed for the backyard rather than formally present himself at the front door. As soon as he came around the side of the house he heard Cara's voice, and knew she was there under their tree, talking to someone. He heard her speak his name, but not angrily; she sounded calm and normal. She seemed to be running through her plans for the day. He could not imagine to whom she spoke. She had introduced him to no one nor mentioned any friends.

  He stopped short, staring, trying to make out who that was beside her. Not another woman, but a man—a young man.

  "Maybe a picnic down by the river ... maybe we could even go for a swim, what do you say to that, Heath?"

  He froze, certain she must have seen him, but her entire attention focused on the young man who leaned against the tree and smiled down at her, a terribly familiar young man, though Heath had not seen that face in the mirror for a long time.

  "Then we'll come back, and I'll make you something nice for dinner, one of your favorites.” She laughed and tossed her head girlishly, as if the silent, ghostly young man beside her had said something. “Just because—because I love you, Heath, you know that! Forever."

  He crept away, though he had an idea she would not have bothered to look in his direction no matter how much noise he made. He knew there was nothing he could say to her that would make her take him back. There was no point in trying. She was happier, her life much simpler, with the young man she had first fallen in love with. She did not need him.

  Avoiding the end of the street where he had seen the strange bird, Heath made his roundabout way to the bus station on foot through the decaying neighborhoods of the town that would never be his home, this time not stopping or staring, this time unsurprised by the wasteland. Of course, there were junked cars and ruined houses on every street, as well as piles of uncollected refuse; and all this would attract scavengers and carrion-eaters. The morning advanced, and he was no longer alone: others, people he glimpsed from the corner of the eye, far away across the street, walked to work or somewhere else, continuing lives he could not imagine. Cars went by, some of them black and shiny with tinted windows rolled up tight, others old, rattling, aggressively noisy.

  At the barred grille of the ticket counter he passed through the largest bill in his wallet in exchange for a printed strip of paper that would allow him to board the next bus. He had no idea where it would take him, or what he would do when he got there, but that seemed not to matter.

  There were only half a dozen other people on board, each sitting separately, all half-turned away from him and from one another as they munched doughnuts or sipped coffee from paper cups. Heath settled into a window seat near the back. He glanced across a debris-littered lot at the railroad station platform, at the crowd patiently waiting there, and wondered why he had not taken the train instead of the bus. He had always loved the train as a boy. When the bus began to move again he stared blankly out at the world, wondering if it would always seem as strange to him. He shifted uneasily in his uncomfortable clothes, on the uncomfor
table seat, and then his fingers strayed to his face. Yes. He was still there.

  Copyright © 2007 Lisa Tuttle & Steven Utley

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  NIGHT'S PLUTONIAN SHORE—Mike O'Driscoll

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  Cormac McCarthy

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  Mike's first collection of stories, Unbecoming, was published last year by Elastic Press. His story ‘Sounds Like’ was filmed in 2006 by Brad Anderson as part of season two of the Masters of Horror series. His latest story, ‘13 O'Clock', appears in Ellen Datlow's horror anthology Inferno (out now).

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  AN ALTERNATIVE CANON

  The Times recently published an essay by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (20 October 2007), on what he perceives as the disaster of multiculturalism. The essay, extracted from his book The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society (Continuum), provoked an almighty backlash, not least because of Sacks’ defence of the idea of a literary canon, and his claim that “the existence of a canon is essential to a culture.” No doubt thousands of Eng. Lit. graduates, sufficiently enlightened to reject the notion that a set of texts written by a bunch of dead white males was the proper basis for a nation's shared values, were among those to criticise Sacks’ essay.

  Any group of people who share a set of cultural values can be called a community, and so it is with those who share a passion for particular types of fiction. Think of the horror community, for example. Does such a community really exist, and if so what are its shared values and beliefs? To paraphrase Sacks, what constitutes our “public vocabulary of narratives and discourse"? To anyone who's been to a genre convention, the answer to the first question is obviously yes. Fans and writers of horror and fantasy regularly congregate to share their ideas and debate the contribution of particular works to the genre. In order to do so, there must exist a set of shared assumptions about horror, though I guess that these assumptions are largely implicit and ill-defined. This is a good thing. Why? Because most attempts to define horror—or any genre—invariably end up with a prescriptive set of rules which, though they make a text easily recognisable as belonging/not belonging, also serve to demarcate the genre to the extent that, when confronted with a genre-blending work like Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954), they become unstable and irrational.