The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

and was three streets away.

'It's coming,' said a figure set back in an alley. Darkness between the wide brimmed hat and the front complement of the long sandwich board; feet were shod in stumps of darkness. He-she may have been facing away. On the sandwich board a huge black blob, crimson gashed and blistered, dripping red onto the white below.

Proffit breathed in assertively through his nose and advanced on the figure. 'What is?'

An arm rose. A match flared, illuminating a scrap of flesh between nose and chin. Smoke billowed as from a vent in a chimney. Proffit stumbled back. 'Waste of space,' he muttered, though hardly that as the figure backed away, ungainly as one fellow atop another, to slot neatly into a recess in the alley.

Proffit merged himself into the flow on the pavement. The egg-white sun was being bandaged in clouds. He sidestepped into the Regal.

A formulaic thriller though the violence engaged him. His fists clenched with the blows. His body tensed to dodge the gunshot. Horror cinema on the front row as a pair of teenagers consumed each other's faces. Others flicked unidentifiable missiles at the screen.

Proffit left, but the film continued on the street. Shoppers braked on the pavement. Shots; echoes disguised their point of origin so everybody faced all ways. A siren cried. From an upstairs window over shops a woman screamed, perhaps with laughter. Proffit took refuge in the Cancer Shop.

Monica disappeared as soon as she saw him. She returned with a long black trench coat which Proffit, with more politeness than enthusiasm, put on. 'Fits like a glove Mr P.,' Monica said admiringly. 'You look proper distinguished.' She said she'd saved it with him in mind. A bargain if you ignored the distant galaxies of impacted dandruff on the shoulders. In her Doc Martens and print frock Monica appeared to have the pick of the stock. Proffit showed one shoulder then the other to the long mirror. The silver buttons were tarnished, and the epaulettes just a little prominent on his shoulders, but yes, he did look like someone to be reckoned with. In fact, a bit of military chic might have encouraged a more studious air in his classes.

With a chilly smile, Proffit said he'd take it. He barely recalled Monica; ex-pupils were merging into composites.

'It'll keep off the rain,' she said, keen to keep pleasing him. Bigger, greyer clouds were back, like schoolyard bullies.

'Don't let up do they?' Proffit said.

Back in his flat, relieved to be there, Proffit saw he hadn't logged out of his internet connection. A vague displeasure at the telephone bill left to fatten over several hours was mixed with trepidation at the new message.

Mr Proffit,

Harrowby rang some bells that prompted me to contact a longstanding colleague. I recalled him telling me of a catalogue with a mysterious supplementary list of imaginatively named places, all represented on maps and globes. The seller was one Albert Lo-stock, a stationer, formerly of your own fair city of Harrowby. To my friend's knowledge none of these globes or maps has ever been documented elsewhere, nor have examples emerged from private collections. Sadly, the fire that apparently destroyed Lostock's shop in 1937 may have robbed us of unique and fascinating items. Send pics soonest, for prompt reply. Humphrey Proffit rang the city library that evening. Yes, he was told. Lostock, A. Stationer. 3 Coal Row, Harrowby. Listed in Pigot's Directory of 1936.

Proffit felt comforted. The globe was physically gone, and now given a context and history that further distanced it. With the receiver in his hand he dialled again.

She answered with a clipped 'Hello.'

'How goes it?' Immediately, the phrase, a punishable offence.

'Fine.' Esther was merciful, or sounded so.

'Still chucking?' He knew she'd turned number seven Canal Terrace minimal as soon as he'd left.

'Still hoarding?' A double edge: bottles behind the bookshelves, under the stairs. Funny how drinking had started his collecting. Bottles first, before broadening his scope.

'Hoarding with a purpose,' Proffit said, suddenly inspired to add. 'Thinking of opening a shop. Antiques.' Someone in Esther's presence moved plates carefully; they weren't antique ones, nobody was stepping into Proffit's shoes to that extent. He wasn't going to ask who it was.

'Good luck,' Esther said, unconvinced by Proffit's pipedream.

'It's coming apparently.'

'Hmm?' A lapse of concentration, then, 'What is?'

'That's what I said.' He let out a chuckle. 'People on the street. Doom-sayers.' A pause Esther didn't fill. 'Actually I'm beginning to believe them.'

A sigh in his ear. 'I'll have to go now Trevor —»

'One other thing,' he began, but no words would serve to introduce that nocturnal adventure. She'd guess it were a stress dream, maybe whisky-fuelled, the zephyr a veritable bottle imp: his problem, no longer hers.

'I'm thinking of leaving the city.'

That must have surprised her; it had surprised him as much as the shop idea. 'Oh,' she said, as if this would be a drastic step even allowing for what had happened between them.

'This city — it's 'doing my head in' as the kids say. The aggression I mean. Complete strangers on the street look like they'd like to knife you. Have you noticed the sirens all day?'

'Cities are tough places, but crime is exaggerated by the media.' She sounded like a member of it. 'People get paranoid —»

Proffit felt reduced to a trend. Her concern not sufficient to pursue the topic, Esther said she had to be going now.

A stumble of «Byes», a withering 'Take care,' from Esther.

Proffit slumped on the sofa with a glass of lager. Another glass shattered in the street. As the evening darkened, cries came at intervals too frequent to require investigation from Proffit, or anyone else within earshot; they were all too patently part of the fabric of the city. A madman shouted barely coherent orders in an increasingly hoarse voice as Proffit was preparing for bed. One great explosion, worth a few pages in tomorrow's Messenger, made his window brace like old bones stretching. Running steps littered Proffit's dreams, in a chaotic and interminable military deployment.

Proffit groaned, pulled the pillow over his face. He must have slept, and regretted this burdensome wakefulness. The knocking again, like an aural personification of the daylight. His presence was known with a deadly certainty, and nothing less than his presence in the flesh would be acceptable.

Proffit tugged on his clothes, and opened the door. Immediately he could tell the pair before him had nothing to sell and weren't collecting the rent. They smiled at Proffit; apparently he didn't know how lucky he was. Their faces were smeared with earth, or paint, or both.

'It's here; it's now.' From a slight refinement of feature Proffit guessed the speaker to be a girl. The other nodded, wonder and something of relief in his expression, as if at some point in the past there'd been doubt on some crucial matter, but all was now resolved.

In the gloom of the corridor something about them… Proffit folded his arms. 'What is?'

'The new world of course,' she said with a pout and flutter of lashes, as if Proffit were being deliberately obtuse.

'What 'new world'?' He leaned against the jamb, settling in for a debate, getting a better look at them. 'I think you'll find there's only this one,' he said, unable to prevent a sigh intermingling with the words. They wore combat jackets and jeans, all torn and stained as if they'd been on particularly taxing manoeuvres. Grimy epaulettes on his jacket; murky brass buttons down the front of hers.

'You've got to be ready for the fight,' the youth said, half-addressing, through a smile breaking out on his lips, his companion, 'Or you'll go under.' Barry — ''Baz' … yes. And she was… Ann.

Baz smirked. 'And you're a good shot, Sir.'

No, Proffit wasn't, but this world had a mischievous god who had worked in a mysterious way to engineer an outcome that had been a shallowly buried wish. Memories pushed and shoved.