The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Part 15

The Demerol came upon him like a high-tide of anesthesia. It soaked into him and everything in the hospital room turned white, as if the molding and wall panels and ceiling scrollwork and inlaid marble chimney piece were carved out of purest snow. He dreamed of winter and castles and books he had read when he was a child. He was inside a cloud, his thoughts drifting, linking laterally, as he dreamed of chalk and snow and barium, of whitewash and bleach, of silver and frost and whipped cream, of angels and sand, of girls as white as his Demerol highs, chalky and naked with long white hair and pale lips, long and thin and small breasted, open and wet and cold, cold as snow, cold as his icicle erection, cold as his thoughts of glacially slow coitus.

He woke up shivering in a dark room, sweat drying on his gooseb.u.mped skin. Gray shadows crawled across the room, a result of traffic on the street below.

Mr. Benjamin was still sitting beside the bed.

"Have you been here all this time?" Charlie asked. It was late. The nurses had turned out the lights in his room, and the hallway was quiet. If he listened carefully and held his breath, he could hear the snoring and moaning of other patients between the tickings of the clock. His mouth was parched, and he reached for the water tumbler. It sat on his nineteen-fifties style nighttable, which also contained the remote control unit that turned the television on and off and also allowed him to buzz the nurse's station. He poured some icewater into a paper cup. "You look more ... real," Charlie said.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Benjamin asked.

"I dunno, you looked kinda weak before."

"Well, I'm feeling better now. My legs stopped itching, and they only ache a little bit now. I can stand it, at least. How about you?"

"I feel like c.r.a.p again," Charlie said. "I thought I was getting better." The pain in his stomach was intense and stabbing; it hadn't been this bad in a long time. "And I know that old fat Mrs. Campbell isn't going to give me another shot until I start screaming and moaning like the guy across the hall."

Charlie's night-nurse thought he was becoming too dependent on painkillers.

"He's getting worse," Mr. Benjamin said.

"Who?" Charlie asked.

"The guy across the hall, Mr. Ladd. Rosie told me he'd had most of his stomach removed."

"I just wish he would stop crying and begging for the pain to go away. I can't stand it. He makes such a racket. There's something pitiful about it. And he's not the only one who's in pain around here."

"Well, who knows, maybe he can cut a deal," Mr. Benjamin said.

"You're not dead," Charlie said.

Mr. Benjamin shrugged.

"I thought you said you had all kinds of contracts to build new buildings and stuff. You said you wanted to work until you dropped dead, that you wanted to travel and all. And what about Miss Anthony ... and your wife?"

"It's all gone," Mr. Benjamin said.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"I don't know," he said, surprised. "I don't really feel anything much about it. Maybe a little sad. But I guess not even that."

"Tell me what it's like to be dead."

"I don't know. The same as being alive, I would suppose, except my legs feel better."

"You're not dead," Charlie said.

"I'll take your word for it, Charlie."

Charlie became worse during the night. He used the speaker in the nighttable to call Mrs. Campbell for a shot, but she told him he wasn't due for another hour. He tried to argue with her, he kept calling her, but she ignored him. He listened to the clock on the wall and turned this way and that, trying to find a comfortable position. G.o.dd.a.m.n her, Charlie thought, and he tried to count himself to sleep. If he could fall asleep for just a little while, it would then be time for his shot.

G.o.dd.a.m.n it hurts ...

And Mr. Ladd across the hall started screaming and whining and trying to make a deal with G.o.d again. Charlie gritted his teeth and tried to pretend that the room was turning white, and that he was numb and frozen, made of blue ice. Ice: the absence of pain.

"Mr. Benjamin, are you still there?" Charlie asked.

But there was no answer.

Finally, it was time for his shot, and Charlie slept, drifting through cold s.p.a.ces defined by the slow ticking of the clock.

Although it was four in the morning and everyone was asleep, the nurses and orderlies ritually closed the doors, as they always did, when they wheeled a corpse down the hallway.

Charlie was awake and feeling fine when Mr. Benjamin brought Mr. Ladd into the room; the pain was isolated and the metallic taste of the drugs was strong in his mouth. Mr. Ladd appeared nervous. He was in his sixties, and bald. He was thin, emaciated-looking, and his skin was blemished with age-marks.

"Our friend here hasn't quite gotten used to being dead," Mr. Benjamin said to Charlie. "I found him wandering around the hallway. You mind if he stays a while?"

"I dunno," Charlie said, although he didn't want the old man in his room. "What's he going to do here?"

"Same thing you're doing. Same thing I'm doing."

Mr. Ladd didn't even acknowledge Charlie. He looked around the room, his head making quick, jerky motions; then he walked across the room, sat down on the stained cushion of the windowseat, and looked down into the street.

"At least your pain's gone," Mr. Benjamin called to him, but the old man just stared out the window, as if he hadn't heard him. "How about you?" Mr. Benjamin asked Charlie.

"I'm okay, I guess," but then someone else came into the room. A middle-aged woman in a blue bathrobe. She exchanged greetings with Mr. Benjamin and walked over to the window. "You know her?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah, I sat with her some yesterday and tonight she was real bad. But I guess you can't win. I left Mr. Ladd to be with her. Now they're both here." Mr. Benjamin smiled. "I feel like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Florence Nightingale."

But Charlie had fallen asleep.

He awoke to bright sunlight. His condition had deteriorated further, for now he had an oxygen tube breathing icy air into one nostril, while in the other was a tube that pa.s.sed down his esophagus and into his stomach. His private nurse Rosie was in the room, moving about, looking starched and efficient and upset. His mother sat beside the bed, leaning toward him, staring at him intently, as if she could think him well. Her small, delicate face seemed old to him, and her dyed jet-black hair looked as coa.r.s.e and artificial as a cheap wig. But both his mother and Rosie seemed insubstantial, as if they were becoming ghosts. His mother blocked out most of the light coming through the windows, but some of it seemed to pa.s.s through her, as if she were a cloud shaped like a woman that was floating across the sun. Her voice, which was usually high and piercing, was like a whisper; and her touch felt dry, like leaves brushing against his skin. He suddenly felt sorry for his mother. She loved him, he supposed, but he felt so removed from her. He probably felt like Mr. Benjamin did when he died. Just a little sad.

Charlie just wished that everyone would leave. He looked toward the light, and saw Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Ladd, and the woman who had walked into his room last night standing near the window. He called for Mr. Benjamin; neither Rosie nor his mother seemed to understand what he was saying.

"Mr. Benjamin?"

His mother said something to Rosie, who also said something to Charlie, but Charlie couldn't understand either of them. Their voices sounded far away; it was like listening to static on the radio, and only being able to make out a word here or there. It was as if Rosie and his mother were becoming ghosts, and the visitors, who were already dead, were gaining substance and reality.

"Yes?" Mr. Benjamin said as he walked over to the bed and stood beside Charlie's mother. "I'm afraid you've had a bit of a setback."

"What are they still doing here?" Charlie asked, meaning Mr. Ladd and the woman who had come into his room last night.

"Same thing I am," said Mr. Benjamin.

"Okay, what are you doing here?"

"Making sure you won't be alone."

Charlie closed his eyes.

Perhaps his mother sensed the presence of the visitors, too, for she suddenly began to cry.

Charlie's mother stayed for the rest of the day. She talked about Charlie's father, as if nothing was going wrong with their marriage, as if she could simply ignore the other dark haired woman who had come into her husband's life. Charlie knew about Laura, the other woman; but he had learned a lot about such things from watching Mr. Benjamin's wife and mistress come and go every week. He supposed it was just the way adults behaved. He couldn't stand to see his mother hurt, yet he couldn't get angry with his father. He felt somehow neutral about the whole thing.

She sat and talked to Charlie as she drank cup after cup of black coffee. She would nod off to sleep for a few minutes at a time and then awaken with a jolt. At five she took her dinner on a plastic tray beside Charlie's bed. Charlie couldn't eat; he was being fed intravenously. He slept fitfully, cried out in pain, received a shot, and lived in whiteness for a while. When he was on the Demerol, his mother and Rosie would all but disappear, yet he would be able to see Mr. Benjamin and the visitors. But Mr. Benjamin wouldn't talk much to him when his mother or hospital personnel were in the room.

Finally, Rosie's shift was over. Rosie tried to talk Charlie's mother into leaving with her, but it was no use. She insisted on staying. Mrs. Campbell, the night nurse, talked with Charlie's mother for a while, and then left the room, as she always did. Charlie would need a shot soon.

His mother held his hand and kept leaning over him, brushing her face against his, kissing him. She talked, but Charlie could barely hear or feel her.

Charlie came awake with a jolt; it was as if he had fallen out of the bed. He was sweaty and could taste something bitter in his mouth. The drugs were still working, but the pain was returning, gaining strength. It was an animal tearing at his stomach. Only a shot and the numbing chill of white sleep could calm it down ... for a time.

"h.e.l.lo," said a young woman standing by the bed beside Mr. Benjamin. She had straight, shoulder-length dark brown hair, a heart-shaped face, blue eyes set a bit too widely apart, a small, upturned nose, and full, but colorless lips. She looked tiny, perhaps five feet one, if that, and seemed very shy.

"h.e.l.lo," Charlie replied, surprised. He felt awkward and looked over to Mr. Benjamin, who smiled. It was dark again. He turned toward the spot where his mother had been sitting, but he couldn't tell if she was still there. He could only hear the clock and the sound of leaves rustling that he imagined might be his mother's voice. The room was dimly lit, and there seemed to be a shadow, a slight flutter of movement, around the chair. Except for the visitors, the hospital seemed empty and devoid of doctors, nurses, orderlies, aides, and candystripers. Charlie felt numb and cold. The air in the room was visible ... was white as cirrus clouds and seemed to radiate its own wan light.

"This is Katherine," Mr. Benjamin said. "She's new here, and a bit disoriented, I think." Katherine seemed to be concentrating on the foot of the bed and avoiding eye contact with Charlie. But Charlie noticed that she didn't seem as real, as corporal, somehow, as Mr. Benjamin. Perhaps she wasn't dead long enough. That would take some time. "I'll step aside and give you a chance to win this time," Mr. Benjamin continued.

Charlie blushed. Mr. Benjamin walked to the other side of the room to be with the other visitors.

"How did you die?" Charlie asked Katherine.

She just shook her head, a slight, quick motion.

"Do you feel all right?" he asked. "Are you scared or anything?"

"I just feel alone," she said in almost a whisper.

"Well, you got Mr. Benjamin," Charlie said.

She smiled sadly. "Yeah, I guess." She sat down on the bed. Her robe was slightly opened and Charlie could see a hint of her cleavage. "Are you dying?" she asked.

That took him by surprise, although as soon as she said it, he realized that it shouldn't have. "I dunno. I've just been sick."

"Do you want to live?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Wouldn't you?"

"It feels kinda the same," she said, "only-"

"Only what?"

"I don't know, it's hard to explain. Just alone, like I said. You seem out of focus, sort of," she said. She touched his hand tentatively, and Charlie could feel only a slight pressure and a cool sensation. Charlie held her hand. It was an impulsive move, but she didn't resist. Her hand felt somehow papery, and Charlie had the feeling that he could press his fingers right through her flesh with but little resistance. She leaned toward him, resting against him. It felt like the cool touch of fresh sheets. She seemed weightless. "Thank you," she whispered.

He curled up against her, put his arm around her waist and rested his hand on her leg. He remembered taking long baths and letting his arms float in the water. Although the water would buoy them up, it also felt as if he was straining against gravity. That's what it felt like to touch Katherine.

Charlie wanted this to last; it was perfect. He felt the pain in his stomach, but it was far away. Someone else was groaning under its weight.

They watched visitors file into the room. Each one looking disoriented and out of focus. Each one walking across to the other side, to the window, to be with the others, who began to seem as tangible and fleshy as Charlie.

Charlie tried to ignore them. He pulled the sheets over himself ... and Katherine. He pressed himself as closely as he could to her, and she allowed him to kiss and fondle her.

As everything turned white, numbed by another shot given to him by a ghost, his nurse, Charlie dreamed that he was making love to Katherine.

It was cool and quiet, a wet dream of death.

At dawn Mr. Benjamin called Charlie to leave. The room was empty; the last of the other visitors had just left without a footfall. Mr. Benjamin looked preternaturally real, as if every line of his face, every feature had been etched into perfect stone. Katherine rose from the bed and stood beside Mr. Benjamin, her robe tightly pulled around her. She, too, looked real and solid, more alive than any of the shadows flitting through the halls and skulking about his room: the nurses and aides and orderlies. Charlie found it difficult to breathe; it was as if he had to suck every breath from a straw.

"Why are you leaving?" Charlie asked, his voice raspy; but his words were glottals and gutturals, sighs and croakings.

"It's time. Are you coming?"

"I can't. I'm sick."

"Just get up. Leave what's in the bed," Mr. Benjamin said impatiently, as if dying was not a terribly important or difficult thing to do.

Katherine reached for his hand, and her flesh was firm and real and strong. "I can see you very clearly now," she said. "Come on."

But someone moved in the chair beside Charlie. A shadow, more of a negative s.p.a.ce. Charlie tried to make it out. Into a soft focus came the outlines of a woman, his mother. But she was a wraith. Yet he could make her out, could make out her voice, which sounded as distant as a train lowing through the other side of town. She was talking about his younger brother Stephen and the sunflowers behind the house that had grown over six feet tall. The sunflowers always made Charlie feel sad, for they signaled the end of summer and the beginning of school. He could feel the warm, sweaty touch of her hand on his face, touching his forehead, which was the way his mother had always checked his temperature.

"I love you, Charlie," she said, her voice papery. "Everything's going to be all right for all of us. And you're going to get well soon. I promise ..."

Katherine's hand slipped away, and then Charlie felt the warm, almost hot, touch of his mother's hand upon his own. She clutched his fingers as if she knew she might be losing him, and in the distance, Charlie could hear that train sound: now the sound of his mother crying. And he remembered the rich and wonderful smells that permeated her tiny kitchen when she was making soup; he could see everything in that room: the radio on the red painted shelves, the china bric-a-brac, the red and black electric cat clock on the wall that had a plastic tail and eyes that moved back and forth; and he remembered his grandmother, who always brought him a gift when she visited; and he could almost hear the voices of his friends, as if they were all pa.s.sing between cla.s.ses; he remembered kissing Laurie, his first girlfriend, and how he had tried unsuccessfully to feel her up behind her house near the river; and even with his eyes closed he could clearly see his little brother, who always followed him around like a duck, and his gray-haired, distant father who was always "working"; he remembered the time he and his brother hid near the top of the red carpeted stairs and watched the adults milling around and drinking and laughing and kissing each other at a New Year's Eve party, and how his father had awakened him and his brother at four o'clock in the morning on New Year's day so they could eat eggs and toast and home fries with him and Mom in the kitchen; he remembered going to Atlantic City for two weeks in the summer, the boardwalk hot and crowded and gritty with sand, the girls in bikinis and clogs, their skin tanned and hair sun-bleached; he remembered that his mother always tanned quickly, and she looked so young that everyone thought she was his girlfriend when they went shopping along the boardwalk; and suddenly that time came alive, and he could smell salt water taffy and taste cotton candy and snow cones that would immediately start to melt in the blazing, life-giving sun.

Charlie could feel himself lifting, floating; yet another part of him was solid, fleshy, heavy with blood and bone and memory.

He thought of Katherine, of her coolness, the touch of her pale lips and icy b.r.e.a.s.t.s ... and then his mother came into focus: age-lines, black hair, shadows under frightened hazel eyes-his eyes.

And her touch was as strong as Katherine's.

He floated between them ... caught.

Soon he would have to decide.

THE BELLFOUNDER'S WIFE.

by A. F. Kidd.

A. F. Kidd, better known to her friends as Chico, was born on April 21, 1953 in Nottingham and currently resides in Middles.e.x. Kidd read law at King's College, London, but her interests in writing, drawing, and cinema pushed a law career aside, and at last word she was working as an advertising copywriter. Both artist and author, Kidd has written several stories and ill.u.s.trated others for Rosemary Pardoe's Haunted Library publications and elsewhere. She has also written and ill.u.s.trated two small chapbooks of her own stories, Change & Decay and In and Out of the Belfry. These stories are very much in the English ghost story tradition, and most of them are a.s.sociated with campanology, in which she is keenly interested.

Perhaps I'd best let A. F. Kidd explain: "Campanology-the English art of change-ringing-is practiced on bells hung on wheels with ropes hanging down in a circle so that the order in which the bells sound can be changed at each pull of the rope. (Hence, 'change-ringing.') It can be done on any number of bells from four to twelve, to set patterns known as 'methods.' There are a great many of these, each officially recognized one having its own particular name." Well, you get the idea.

If you want to know how I got this white streak in my hair, I'll tell you.