Horror Library, Volume 4 Read online

  "Come on over," he said. "I'm not that scary."

  His laugh reminded me of a handsaw ripping through wood, and when my eyes finally adjusted I could see he was only partially telling the truth. Reports put him at thirty-three, but he could have passed for sixty. One side of his head was caved in like a dented fender. Short brown hair covered only half his scalp; the other side was nothing but a roadmap of scar tissue. His face hung slack as if sculpted of warm wax. I dug my fingers into my leg and tried not to stare.

  "I'm Hank McCormick," Dad said, reaching out a hand. "This is my son, Will."

  Ethan brushed Dad's hand aside.

  "Do you have a picture?"

  Dad hesitated, then dragged a finger across the top of the envelope. Without glancing at it, he withdrew the photograph of Mom standing on a hotel balcony. If he spotted it, Dad said nothing about the red "X" I'd drawn in Sharpie on the back.

  Ethan took the photograph into his twitching hands. I held my breath. I was about to find out if I'd given too much trust to a man I didn't know. He studied Mom's picture for less than three seconds before handing it back. I thought I saw a faint smile cross Ethan's face when his eyes drifted to the mark on the back of the photograph.

  He said, "Elaine McCormick worked as an actuary with Hutchison Insurance. On September 11th, she arrived at work at 7:53 wearing a black pantsuit she'd bought at Macy's."

  Dad gripped my arm, burrowing his nails into my wrist. When I covered his hand with mine his wedding ring pressed into my palm.

  "She was writing an email when the plane hit. The wing tore through her floor, destroying the entire office. The impact was so sudden she had no time to react and died instantly. Burning jet fuel incinerated her in minutes."

  Dad's legs gave out and he sagged into me. I wrapped an arm around him and swallowed back the bile traveling up my throat.

  "Is there anything else?" Dad said.

  "When I saw her," Ethan said, "she was at peace standing in the long line. Elaine knew what awaited."

  Dad's voice was a whisper. "Was she thinking of me or Will?"

  "The dead don't think of the living," Ethan said. "That part of their life is over."

  Tears raced down Dad's face. He exhaled, then wrapped his arms around Ethan, who bristled at the touch.

  "Thank you so much," Dad said.

  When Dad stood there was a faint light in his eyes, a small ember where I once thought only ashes remained. A brief image of the future, of Dad resuming a normal life and returning as my father, flashed in my head.

  "We can go now," Dad said. He put his arm around me as we walked away. I leaned in, aware that a good deal of the weight I'd carried when we'd entered the building had now vanished. I'd done it, and I knew whatever guilt accompanied paying Stuckey two thousand dollars to tell my father exactly what I wished was worth it.

  We were to the edge of the screen about to rejoin the others when Ethan called my name. I turned and he beckoned me, his thin hand pulling through the air. I tried to keep walking, but Dad stopped.

  "What do you think he wants?"

  "Let's just go," I said. "We've heard what we need."

  "But maybe he remembered something else."

  There was nothing I could do. The two of us started back, but Ethan said, "No, just the boy."

  Dad shrugged, then told me he'd wait by the others.

  Cold sweat trailed down my back. Ethan gestured for me to kneel. Heat radiated off his skin as if he were deeply fevered.

  "Your father seems happy."

  Not willing or able to meet his eye, I stared into the darkness over his shoulder.

  "You're not the first one, you know," he said. "It's more common than you'd think. We're inclined to protect those we love."

  "I can't pay you anything more, if that's what you want."

  "It's true what I said before. You accepted certain conditions by coming here, and regardless of your intentions toward your father, I keep my end of the bargain."

  I went to leave, but then his voice snaked into my brain, paralyzing me.

  "For your fifth birthday, Elaine threw you a Thundercats-themed party and hired an actor to play Lion-O. On your ninth birthday, she took you and four friends to Coney Island for the day. Your friend Joey ate too much popcorn and threw up off the pier. You all watched the seagulls drop into the water to eat his puke."

  My chest heaved, and I tried to slow down my breathing before I hyperventilated. Ethan didn't break his stare, and now he had a deep smile.

  "And the last time Elaine ever saw you," he said, "you were at the bus stop as she drove away."

  I couldn't move. Everything else faded until there was only his voice. I spoke into the darkness.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Just keeping my part of the deal," Ethan said. "Elaine wasn't in her office when the plane hit. She was six floors down fucking Craig Hubbard on his desk. They'd been having an affair for over three years. He's the one who first showed her that charming sign you and Elaine shared. They would do the signal across the office when they wanted to meet later to fuck."

  My mouth was dust.

  "I don't believe you."

  "It doesn't matter if you do or not," Ethan said. "When the ceiling collapsed, Elaine's back snapped, pinning her down. She watched the fire grow around her knowing she was going to die. Her last thought before her clothing ignited was how she had wasted her entire life."

  Ethan's voice faded as if he were walking away in a dust storm. "When I saw your mother," he concluded, "she was with the others in the short line, radiating a shame and terror known only to those who realize they are damned."

  I was still unable to move. The long hours, the overcompensation for her absences—somehow I knew. A light illuminated my memories showing the real events that had lived in shadow. Had she been with Hubbard all those nights she wasn't home? Were there others before him? Did she consider me part of that wasted life? The questions wouldn't stop.

  "What am I supposed to do now?"

  "Well, at least your father's happy, right?" Ethan said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

  Burt poked his head around the corner and cleared his throat. Ethan looked past me as if I wasn't there.

  "Send in the next one."

  I turned away and had to concentrate on each step just to walk. I emerged from behind the curtain feeling as if I were entering a new world forever altered. Dad waited for me, his hands out expectantly.

  "So what did he say?"

  He had wiped the tears away and now had a smile with real life behind it. A row of folding chairs stood between us. Aware of the newly drawn line separating us and weighed down by a burden I knew could never be unloaded, I forced a smile and began my new life in The After.

  Kurt Dinan's work has appeared in +Horror Library+ Volume 3, Darkness on the Edge: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, and twice in Chizine, where he won the 2007 Chizine Short Story Contest. He lives with his wife and three children in Cincinnati.

  —ASH WEDNESDAY

  by Lorne Dixon

  Everything was a blur, my vision fading and brightening, until the pulsating colors and trembling shapes slowed their spin. I saw broken glass on asphalt, the swaying blue bristle tree line under the Santa Lucia Mountains, the twisting funnels of black clouds against a starless sky. I heard nothing except the hum of my inflamed eardrums. Rolling, standing up, wobbling, shaking, I turned back toward the fire.

  I watched as a fireball ascended off the roof of the sprawling building. A line of flame ran across the Morro Bay Private Mental Health Center sign, curling the white paint, chewing down into the carved lettering. I snapped my dangling jaw shut and brushed myself off.

  The explosion had caught us by surprise, knocking three teams of fire responders off our feet. Our Ladder's Blitz line—two and a half inches of hose—danced on the parking lot like a snake. It struck a uniformed cop, bowling him over, slamming his unconscious body against the Chief's car. Half a dozen fire
fighters jumped to their feet and tackled the hose and held on until their combined weight and strength wrestled it under control.

  The explosion meant the fire had reached the Sanitarium's boiler room. We'd contained it to the offices and Visitor's Center up until then, but now it would spread fast.

  "That's the game, folks." Chief Henderscott shouted.

  A Volunteer team member from San Luis Obispo ran to my side. He screamed over the fire's roar, "What's he mean by that?"

  I shook my head. Only a few scraggly hairs on his chin, the kid couldn't have been more than twenty. I pulled his ear close. "It means the fire just won. We got nothing that can handle the sumbitch. Building's done."

  Confusion crossed his face. "Then what now?"

  "This just became a pure rescue mission," I told him, careful to lock his eyes on mine. He needed to understand what my words meant—fully understand. "We have to get in there and get those people out."

  Confusion turned to panic. "But they're—"

  He didn't say the word insane but it hung in the air just beyond his lips, almost audible.

  "Yes," I said. "They are."

  The same horrible thought fluttered through all of our minds, I'm sure, both the veterans of Ladder Six-Fifteen and the weekend adventurers from the eager volunteer squads that had raced to our town. The building was already partially evacuated. Partially. The first responders quit pulling patients out when a hallway ceiling collapsed, crushing three of the firefighters. I arrived just as they were regrouping in the parking lot.

  Morro Bay divided its patients into three color coded wards. Green Ward was made up of the self-committed and the homeless. Yellow ward was low-level criminals with mental health issues who had managed to avoid jail time in exchange for some time on a shrink's chaise. They were already gone, filed out and moved to the state hospital.

  The violent psychotic incurables of Red Ward were still inside. A whisper echoed in my ear, an earlier voice warning me that some of the inmates had gotten loose in the confusion and that some of the staff was missing.

  The Chief barked out orders, pairing up firemen with local cops. No one hesitated to follow the Chief's commands. The old man had gone to Korea and Vietnam, neither time on vacation, and his voice carried more authority than the stripes he had earned.

  "You're with me," a voice said over my shoulder. I turned and saw Leo McNeiss suiting up. I'd known him since grade school, before he'd moved to the city and become a cop, before scandal had sent him back home to be a small town deputy, before the deep lines in both our faces. We had never been what you would call friends. As a kid Leo hadn't quite been a bully, but he wasn't someone you chose as an enemy, either. He pointed to the young Volunteer from San Luis Obispo, "Both of you."

  Shaking, the kid said, "My name's Fenley. Arno—"

  "I wouldn't fling a link of monkey shit for your name, son," Leo said, strapping on his breathing gear. I doubted that he had ever used an oxygen unit before but he didn't need any instructions. That was just who he was. He handed over a pair of filtration masks. "We go in two minutes."

  Fenley raced to a truck for more gear. Leo rolled a copper fire extinguisher over to me. Stepping in, he said, "We have a special task. I'm sure you remember the name Otto Weissmuller?"

  I did. Five years ago, Weissmuller had been arrested and tried on seventeen counts of conspiracy to murder. He'd led a cult of drug-addled teens on a rampage through southern California, terrorized the nation, and kept the newspapers in business.

  "This hospital has four wings, not three. The fourth is Black Ward. He's their star patient. It's a big secret. They don't want any of his family to try to bust him out." Leo cocked his thumb over at Fenley. The boy fumbled with the straps to his oxygen tank. "Don't want to say anything to him. Would spook him."

  "He's already spooked," I said.

  Leo attached the feed line to his tank. "Then maybe he's smarter than he looks. When we caught Weissmuller, he was an animal, filthy, long unwashed hair, three inch dirty fingernails—like talons. Barely human. He killed three cops with his bare hands at that roadblock. Bit one patrolman's eye right out of his skull."

  "Christ," I muttered.

  Fenley shuffled back to us as I jumped into my equipment. Inside our suits it must have been ninety degrees, but the kid was shivering. At that point he probably regretted ever volunteering for the Boy Scouts, let alone fire fighting. I wondered if he had caught any of our conversation. No, I decided. He was, after all, still standing.

  We dropped the air masks over our faces and joined the procession of firemen and cops heading toward the Sanitarium's open front doors. Plumes of black smoke rolled out of the entrance in bursts. It felt like we were walking on a dragon's tongue toward its open mouth. Leo checked his service revolver and it reminded me that Fenley and I were armed only with fire extinguishers. The kid locked step and stayed close by my side. He did not even glance toward Leo.

  A wave of swirling darkness reached out from the doorway and choked off our vision. We huddled together and pushed inside, walking blind, each of us with our free hand clenching the shoulder of the man ahead. The fire's fierce growl rumbled louder as our feet hit tile. Timber crackled and snapped. The building's foundation groaned as it weakened.

  A rush of bristling hot air hit us and cleared out the smoke. A faint light crept in—the fire's orange glow seeping between shrinking wall panels—and the group separated into teams. Leo headed past the reception desk, walking fast, hands waving away lingering trails of smoke. Fenley and I hurried to stay close on his coat tails.

  A thunderous boom shook down from the hospital's roof and I drew the unsettling image of walking in a cavern deep underground while an earthquake raged in the rock overhead. I jerked my head up quick enough to see a section of the ceiling buckle inward. Grabbing Fenley's collar, I bolted for the hallway. The reception room's ceiling collapsed in a black shower of debris. I heard screams but didn't turn. I kept running, dragging Fenley along, until I caught up with Leo.

  Glancing back, the reception room was gone, buried and smoldering. I understood at that moment the terror that miners must feel from inside a cave-in. A dark cloud hurled down the hallway like a fireball, covering us in soot. Fenley and I crouched down and followed Leo.

  We passed through a set of double doors and the smoke thinned out. The fire lit room flickered evil orange and yellow hues. The nurse's station seemed to sway with the light, the floor and walls suddenly turned to rubber. My stomach turned as I stepped forward. Illusion or not, it felt like walking on a raft, the constant movement under my feet making each step a challenge.

  We saw the first body as we made the turn into the disturbed ward. A nurse, stripped naked, stretched across the floor. Someone had wrapped her head in medical gauze, but not enough to mask the red stains over her eyes, flattened nose and mouth. In her blood, her killer had drawn a peace symbol between her exposed breasts.

  Fenley took two steps back, pulled off his mask, and vomited.

  Leo stepped over the nurse and continued down the hall. The doors on both sides had been forced open, some torn off their hinges. I caught up with him, careful not to look down as I hurdled the nurse's body, and peeked into the first room. An inmate sat on a bench against the far wall, his straight-jacket bloodied. He had been decapitated and his head returned to his neck upside down. The deep frown on his face had been carved into a crimson smile with two bloody thumbprints on his chin for eyes.

  Fenley came up behind me, mask still in hand. I turned, blocked his view into the room, and shook my head. I saw his eyes glisten. The kid was close to tears.

  I didn't look in the other rooms in that first hallway. Leo took the time to poke his head in each, a swift search, before returning to the hall. His face never gave any hint what he saw in those chambers. I shuddered at the thought that he might have seen worse.

  Leo spun on his heels until he faced us, pointed to Fenley with one crooked finger, and barked, "Put the goddamn mask over
you face."

  Fenley obeyed. He brought the mask up to his mouth with shaking hands and rolled the elastic strap over his head.

  Gesturing with the same finger, Leo continued down the hall to a set of double doors. Turning the handles, he found them locked, so he kicked them in. He was a stronger man than he seemed—and no one would have pegged him for a weakling. The doors splintered away from their hinges and collapsed inward. He stepped over the resulting debris into the highest security wing—Black Ward—and, God help us, we trailed along behind him, right down a steep flight of metal stairs.

  Even in the dimming light I could see that Black Ward's walls were bare, not decorated with art school dropout oil paintings like the rest of the hospital. The hallways were a cinderblock maze, a dungeon. But then, I thought, where else would they keep monsters?

  More of the ceiling collapsed somewhere overhead—a hellish crescendo of splintering lumber, crackling masonry, and the whoosh of fire finding a fresh portal to the night sky. For a moment I feared the whole complex was pancaking down on top of us. I saw the drop ceiling over our heads plummeting down, followed by an avalanche of blackened debris. I raised an arm and ducked down, but the collapse was a trick of light, shadow, and my spinning head conspiring to bring my worst fears into my eyes.

  Fenley's hand pushed between my shoulder blades, urging me to keep up with Leo and somehow my feet obliged, picking up speed, wandering into the dark. The last feeble trickle of light dissipated and I was blind. The concrete floor under my feet became a promise that I didn't dare trust—I expected to plunge down into an abyss with each clumsy footfall. I was shaking every bit as much as Fenley's hand on my back. All at once, I felt chills and hot flashes, freezing and burning all at once.

  Something was very wrong with me.

  A door opened a dozen feet up the hallway and a flicker of firelight danced over the floor. We ran to Leo, standing in the doorway, gun drawn. As we passed through, I glanced up and saw that the fire had eaten away a corner of the ceiling, giving us that precious tiny light but also bringing the flames closer. I felt waves of blistering heat buffet down and suck the moisture from my pores. I continued to shiver anyway.