Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

Dream or not, Louise had been right. Jules and I did make a go of it.

We saw each other constantly that summer, although I must confess I tried to spend as much time as possible at her place, a pied-a-terre down the Goldhawk Road. It wasn’t bad. Just twenty minutes’ drive away, or a few stops on the Victoria line, then change, and a few more stops heading west.

But Louise didn’t come back to visit, and eventually I forgot all about it.

Then, one evening that September, I came in from work to get changed for a publisher’s dinner, and she was sitting at the kitchen table holding Percy on her lap. He was looking longingly at the fridge, and it struck me that whatever Louise had said, some dead creatures still remembered about being hungry.

‘Hello,’ she said when I walked in. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’

It was the same thing she’d said to me myriad times before. And I answered like I’d always answered. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Put the kettle on.’

She dropped the cat on to the floor and did just that. ‘I told you that you two would get on, didn’t I?’

I nodded and lit a cigarette.

She made the tea. Just one cup, and said, ‘Party tonight?’

‘You obviously know,’ I replied. ‘Been using your crystal ball again?’

‘That’s right. Taking Jules?’

I nodded.

‘You could always take me.’

‘Can anyone else see you?’ I hadn’t asked that question before.

She shook her head.

‘It’d be a bit weird then, wouldn’t it? Me sitting next to an empty chair having a conversation with an untouched plate of chicken Kiev.’

‘I suppose you’re right. But I might come anyway. The Savoy, isn’t it?’

‘Is there anything you don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘Then why this visit? Not that you’re not welcome.’

‘You’re forgetting me. I can tell. I’m fading away.’

‘Does that happen?’

‘Only to people that no one cares about.’

‘But I do care.’

‘Not as much. Not since Jules came along.’

Of course it was true.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t mention it. Some people only last a few weeks.’

‘How do you know that, if you’ve never seen anyone else?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I just do.’

‘So what can we do about it?’

‘Lots of things,’ said Louise. ‘But I’d better let you get changed. You don’t want to keep Jules waiting.’ And she hauled Percy up, and walked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her. I only waited a split second before I followed, but when I searched, the flat was empty again.

After that, things started getting really weird. Louise and Percy were hanging out a lot at my flat, and I wouldn’t let Jules anywhere near the place. Not that Louise didn’t make the odd appearance at Jules’ place. She did. And often I’d know she’d been there when we weren’t. Things were moved or vanished, and Jules started talking poltergeists. Hey, I knew better. And then she started showing up at work, and in pubs, bars and restaurants. I was losing weight and smoking too much, and people started commenting on it.

It got so that I dreaded spotting a redhead anywhere. A redhead in a black sweater, black short skirt, black tights, and scuffed black shoes. A redhead who didn’t look a minute older than the day I met her all those years ago.

Then, just before Christmas, I made the biggest mistake of my life. On the twenty-first of December I asked Jules to marry me.

And on the same day, she made the biggest mistake of her life.

She accepted.

She was going up north for Christmas to visit her family who had moved there.

She wanted me to go with her, but I had family commitments of my own. And besides, I wanted her to break the happy news to her folks whilst I was a couple of hundred miles away. I spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the bosom of my family. I told them the glad tidings just before I left, and split to leave them to mull it over in their own time.

I got back to my flat at lunchtime on the 27th, and Louise was waiting for me.

Talk about ‘Hell hath no fury’.

She was well pissed off, and even old Percy spat at me. And I’d fed the little bugger for years.

‘I knew it,’ she screamed. ‘I knew you’d do something stupid.’

‘Hey, listen,’ I said back. ‘You’re dead. I don’t even know if you’re a figment of my imagination. So don’t get all aerated with me.’

‘Try this for a figment,’ she said, and cleaned my clock with a right hander. It hurt too. ‘If you marry that bitch, I’ll be gone. I know it. She’ll want babies and shit like that, and you’ll forget me, and I’ll be gone.’

‘I told you, Louise,’ I said as calmly as possible under the circumstances, holding a cold flannel to my throbbing nose, I’ll never forget you.’

‘And you want me to stay?’

What could I say, after all we’d been through? It was time to shit or get off the pot. Cast the die, and to hell with the consequences.

‘Yes,’ I said. And with that single word I invoked the chaos theory. A butterfly spread its wings in Venezuela, and it rained in Somaliland.

Louise calmed down then, and Percy rubbed his fat, furry self against my leg. She even cooked me dinner. A most acceptable lamb chop, mashed potatoes and peas.

Later on, when I was smashed on a bottle of port that one of my authors had sent me for Christmas, I broached the subject of sex.

We were watching the late-night movie. A stalk, strip and slash exploiter from the late seventies.

‘Do you still fancy it?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘That’s all over. Just as well really.’

I had to agree, but didn’t vocalize the thought. Necrophilia had never been a fantasy of mine.

Louise stayed until the end of the film, then she blew me a kiss, collected Percy and left.

She stopped in the doorway as she was going, and asked, ‘Did you really mean what you said?’

‘What?’ I’d said an awful lot that night.

‘About me staying.’

‘Of course.’

She smiled a brilliant smile. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘See you around.’

But after she went, I remembered the story about the man who wished for something, and got exactly what he’d wished for.

Jules came back for New Year, we went out and celebrated, and surprise, surprise, Louise didn’t show.

I was amazed. At the very least I’d expected her to pop in and wish me the compliments of the season.

In fact I didn’t see her for months. And as the wedding plans advanced, Jules and I visited both sets of parents, God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world. At least our little piece of it. I even cut down on cigarettes, and started to put on weight.

Then, on the sixth anniversary exactly of Louise’s death, I got home from work to Jules’ place where she’d promised to cook me dinner, and it had all come on top.

Of course I had a key to the flat, and the first thing I saw when I’d let myself in through the front door was Percy giving himself a quick wash and brush-up by the foot of the stairs.